Password Please?

As snow days put me in a cleaning mood (or as in a cleaning mood as I'm capable of achieving), I ended up going through my computer files and deleting extraneous junk cluttering my aging hard drive.

In a file reserved for random writings, aptly titled "Writings," there are many documents. Most of these documents are unfinished pieces of crap, with inspirations long forgotten and trains of thought derailed. I vaguely remember writing most of them, though there is one curious file I don't remember. It is ever-so helpfully titled "stuff."

But when you click "stuff," a prompt appears asking for a password. I apparently password protected this file. I am not even sure how to do that, but I guess I knew at one time. I wonder how many similar skills I have forgotten. I know I have forgotten the password to access this file.

It is a very strange thing to be locked out of something you created yourself. I'm not sure who I was hiding it from, considering nobody uses this computer but me. I am also not sure of what sort of sensitive information I would deem it necessary to password-protect. This all has me very curious as to what I wrote there.

Lately, I have been very critical of my fourteen year old brother's illogical secrecy, but here is a nice example of my own. I bet that file and his facebook page contain many similar contents, and perhaps he will forget the password to his eventually as well.

My file also goes to illustrate what I've been trying to tell him about his adolescent woes--what seems so important then, important enough to set up security measures, is easily forgotten in a few year's time. I am sure what is written there was very pressing at fourteen, but is now laughable and probably embarrassing.

It is easy to make these presumptions about a time when it's easy to criticize yourself, but I'm sure the idea remains the same for any other stage of life as well. I will probably look back on this blog some day with absolute shame; I already do at some of the older posts.

But that doesn't invalidate the feelings I had at the time when I decided to commit them to hypothetical paper. Maybe my new prospective on them actually validates them; it shows growth in how I view the world and prioritize.

There's an essay that most English students around here have to read called "Dwellings." The author describes the experience of reading all her past journals and seeing past versions of herself almost as characters in the various books. They are all herself, but such variations of herself that they almost seem foreign. Very relatable, but not the same person. This concept is lost on many students who read the essay for class--they can only envision one possible conception of themselves, and they believe they've been this singular person their whole lives.

Anybody who writes at all or journals themselves knows this is simply not true. The essay resounded greatly with me; she is absolutely correct. Every time I read something I've written, I can definitely recognize myself in it, but it is not the same me that is reading it. I find that a highly valuable part of writing at all.

So past me that felt the need to password protect obviously wasn't thinking about future me's need to learn from my past writing. And she is also very good at thinking of hard to guess passwords.