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Comment by tisme | Hacker News Reader

Something about this story makes me uncomfortable but I can't put my finger on it.

For me, it was the digitizing phase. Tearing apart a yearbook, page by page, and feeding it through a scanner? Taking a picture of something you got as a gift and donating the actual thing?

Sometimes an item exists just to be itself. A yearbook doesn't have any value if it isn't yours, or if you don't invest it with some. If you decide you don't want something, fine – but it seems very strange to keep around a formless simulacra of it.

I digitized a bunch of stuff as well, and was very pleased with it. Objects were keys to memories for me, so throwing away the object felt like throwing away the memory. Looking through the photos makes me really happy, and I don't miss not having the physical objects.

Digitizing was probably my favorite part of this process. I actually look at my photos a lot more now than I ever did before when they were stuck in photo albums because they're in folders in my computer now. And the same goes for my old papers, cards, etc. It's not that I look at these items very often now, but I never looked at them before.

With photos and paper based mementos, I found the physical copies just sat in a box, and were (almost) never looked at.

Scanned copies are a lot easier to 'take out' and browse through.

Same here.. pictures of physical things are a very poor replacement for the actual thing.

I lost my HS yearbooks before I could digitize them. Its freaking impossible to find another of those things.

A fujitsu sheet feeding scanner has been the single most liberating device I've ever owned.

When you cut apart something like a yearbook to scan it, its almost a religious experience. In faith, you sacrifice the book's corporeal form so that its essence can ascend into the cloud and live forever.

Not a fan of classmates.com, but they are digitizing yearbooks.

My HS yearbooks were destroyed in a flood. I felt bad and nostalgic for a couple of days. Now it's just a cocktail party story about how I lost my yearbooks.

For me it was the lack of a resolution. We're put in an uneasy state as we the protagonist describes separating herself away from things she cared about, and then the story ends without knowing whether everything worked out.

I should have explained more of why I wanted to downsize during that time.

My main reason for wanting to downsize was because I didn't want to bring a bunch of clutter and stuff into my new home and life because I was starting a new life in a way. There was something appealing about having a fresh start. I still have this where when we have moved homes, I get very interested in downsizing again. It's the lure of the fresh start and getting rid of the clutter.

Another reason was because I wanted clear up some personal mental and emotional energy. I think in a way I was tired of how attached I was to some of my stuff because I recognized that I was still getting my identity from what I used to do. When the reality was, those things were not a part of my life anymore. For example, one of my first jobs was as an editor for a very small publication. I held onto every single magazine I was a part of. I think I was sick of holding on to my past and I wanted to move on. It isn't that I wanted to forget my past experiences, I just didn't want to find my identity in it anymore. Getting rid of the stuff helped me tremendously with that.

Well, it is your stuff, so I can only wish you the best of luck. And I sincerely hope that you will not come to regret this at a later age, as someone who 'lost all his stuff' on two occasions I can tell you that even after two decades you can still miss physical objects with no real value beyond the sentimental. Memories can be triggered in powerful ways by objects, both good and bad. Living without such triggers will make your memories fade, as though erasing not just a part of your past, but also of yourself.

Take good care.

For me there were two things: first the feeling that this was forced (for the very broad definition of the word) on her by her SO. Second, that there was a very little point of doing that.

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