Temporary... oh, so temporary

Interrupting the previous train of thought... I just posted (elsewhere) a post about ephemera, and how paper seems to have taken over my life. How so, in the day of the grand white screen? Why, oh why, haven't I filed everything in the electronic file bin? Ah! This electronic beast of so-called permanence, it seems, is in itself temporary. Computers crash, websites fade, dashboards disappear, software upgrades, interfaces change, corporations merge. I cannot find my blog, I cannot find my dashboard. My database, wiped out at the drop of a hat or a sneeze, all by some silent, faceless entity, which this moment, perhaps, has decided to merge, or disband, or go bye-bye in whatever form or fashion pleases them; barely a blink, a nod, or an email ~ leaving me and my ephemera to fend for ourselves. But supposing, just supposing, I could trust today's host to be there tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Then I'd still have to digitize my ephemera to save it. Photos, papers, cards, scraps: files cabinets and bins and baskets full: these things, I have. But to scan them, to transcribe them, even to make brief extracts, would take another lifetime or two. So, this Lord of all Human Knowledge, this Information of the big "I," this electronic file cabinet ~ this wonderful, much-touted savior of humanity, the computer, the Internet ~ 'tis all merely ephemera. And so it goes...