Life's ordeals

[Babybluex]

To a lot of people, losing a forum site doesn't mean much, but I'm going to explain to you why when these forums went down, I almost lost hope in everything.

You see, I had two external hard drives, and one day, one of the hard drives fell while I was copying some files for a friend of mine. I grabbed it in mid air, but the hard drive just died, there and then.

Let's just say I had almost all my files on it, and they were gone. After days of despair, I collected what remained of my spirit, and I went on. I bought a new one, and started to download stuff, and also pictures and videos of my life. 5 months ago, I had a dreadful car accident and couldn't walk for about 2 and a half months, and during that time, I didn't even have an internet connection, and was practically isolated from the world.

When I managed to walk again, and went back to my job, I got an internet connection, and started getting my life back on track.

Around a month and a half ago I discovered that I have to leave my current job, and I started looking for a new one. This search is still taking time, but I haven't lost hope. Anyhow, about 3 weeks ago my email was hacked and I couldn't get it back (there goes my contacts) and to make matters worse, the new hard drive, which I had practically stuffed with anime, apps and family pictures and videos, died on me, and it was so sudden that I almost smashed a lot of stuff around out of anger.

The next day, My flash drive breaks down, and I lose all the data on it too...

Now, and this is my whole point of this post, I discovered the next day that these forums are DOWN. I literally went nuts. I had though to myself that this was my last haven on earth, where I can forget about all these misfortunes and pretend that everything is going just fine, but this place seemed like it had died to me.

I only got a grip on my emotions when I discovered that these forums are not completely dead...

The question is, how sane is it to get attached to such materealistic things, such as forums, when you know you might lose them one day?!

I personally thing it weakens us and makes us fragile, very fragile, but at the same time, these materealistic attachments sometimes make us get through the most hellish and desperate times of our lives...

What do you think?

Edited July 10, 2012 by Babybluex

[† Emotional Outlet]

I'm sorry you had to go through that.

As I mentioned on a separate thread, I've lost a lot of data myself through the years. Pictures, game saves, writing, chat logs--most anything people collect through their Internet adventures and day to day life. And I've lost it all on multiple occasions on different hardware. HDD inexplicably blowing up, external drives screaming "YOLO" as they stop working, games crashing as they save and corrupting the save in the meanwhile because reasons, mismatched mods creating catastrophic results.

Were it a different time and place for me, to experience a rollback of this size would have been incredibly frustrating. I mean, I'm the kind of person who spends hours in a game grinding, barely moving forward in the story because I'm so busy grinding, haha. To lose saves on my RPGs is to lose hundreds of hours of my life (the quality of those hours are a separate debate entirely, haha). To lose my writing is to lose that magic, the result of a spark of inspiration. I'm not even left with a draft to edit. To lose posts is fairly significant as well, since I generally take my time with longer responses. I lost the superlatives, so I have to recreate the categories. I lost the MOTM thread. I had to recreate my showcase. All the conversations I had, conversations I enjoyed and wanted to continue, had vanished. All my posts over that period--and I'm a fairly regular poster--were gone. I can hear the screams of agony from people in the counting threads as they lose all of their progress.

And so did a lot of other people. SOTW in particular took a huge hit, due to its timeliness.

I'm not as attached to the data any more. It is dreadful and inconvenient, but these things happen. You either learn to deal with it and be more careful with your backups and failsafes or accept the fact you'll probably lose everything. The only way for me to lose complete touch with people is if Steam, Facebook, Tumblr, Google, this forum, Shazi's forum, my phone, my husband's phone, and Pesterchum all fall off the face of the earth at the same time. I lose a lot of stuff in general--charms, jewellery, papers, books. You name it, I've lost it somehow. I've learnt to cope with losing crap through the years, haha.

It's not unreasonable to be attached. Photos are memories, one of a kind, once in a lifetime images--you'll never be able to recreate them exactly, recreate your day, how you felt, what it was like for you up until that photo happened. Same with videos, perhaps even more so. You spend a lot of time on a game, you become attached to the characters. You care about them and their progress. And since this is a community, I can definitely understand being despondent over the potential loss of the forum.

I'm in a somewhat unique position in that this forum has been a part of my life, in one way or another, since I was, what, 13? Although the community has been in flux through the years (I'm sure Koby can attest to that), it been more or less a constant. Yes, there have been some dark times and times where I have been absent for extended periods, but I always came back at some point. So yes, losing this forum would be quite significant to me because I have known it for so long. But as I changed through the years, so too did the forum. I have my moments where I miss the old community, the old names I used to see around and people I would hang out with. The way it used to be a lot closer and we'd goof off with each other all the time.

Even if it's not like that any more, even if those people aren't here, I still have the memory and that's good enough for me, haha.

Just remember you can always track the status of the forum on Facebook and Twitter.

Edited July 10, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[Babybluex]

You've made a lot of interesting points. It's true, memories can be a sort of slavation sometimes. Well, leave it or take it, this is the modern life I guess!

[coffeeNiK]

Materialistic obsession is actually quite okay to be honest. I wouldn't feel bad about it at all.

The truth is some people would argue that this obsession is exactly the attribute that differs Humans from animals. We form bonds with inanimate things.

We find comfort surrounded by familiar things. If you remove those things its not difficult to see that it's easy to lose your mind over it.

People who say that living life without being too attached is the way to go...whether or not that's the correct method to living life is yet to be proved but I can tell you one thing. Those people have to "try" to live life like that. It's not natural...and it's not easy. It makes it sound like its a kindergarten point saying it like that but the theory has some merit to it.

"Tyler Durden - The things you own end up owning you"

[† Emotional Outlet]

Haha, humans do a lot of unnatural things. Driving cars, using computers, watching television, deep fried butter, create and play musical instruments. We write fan fiction about real people and make art with burnt toast.

Some people bond easily with things, whether it's fictional characters or material objects. Others, not so much. I think most people fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. It doesn't make the ones who don't any less "natural" than those who do.

Although I disagree with the implication animals don't bond with material things. They can get possessive over their things as much humans do, haha. Ever see videos about animals and their toys? They get real touchy if you try to take something away from them!

Edited July 11, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[Babybluex]

The things you own end up owning you?!! Right?! I quite agree to a certain degree. I see people taking loans just to get fancy cars or buy fancy houses, and they wind up spending half their lives paying back those loans, when they could've replaced that fancy stuff with less expensive alternatives.

Animals bond to things very differently from the way we do! In the world of animals there is a "norm", but for us humans, we create the norm through creating stereotypes, but that doesn't mean much when applied to the case of personal possesions, as we all deal with possessions differently and appreciate them differently

[coffeeNiK]

Although I disagree with the implication animals don't bond with material things. They can get possessive over their things as much humans do, haha. Ever see videos about animals and their toys? They get real touchy if you try to take something away from them!

That's true. I'm just relating what some people think

Adding my 2cents lol...

And true that Moppet...."we all deal with possessions differently and appreciate them differently"

[† Emotional Outlet]

Animals bond to things very differently from the way we do! In the world of animals there is a "norm", but for us humans, we create the norm through creating stereotypes, but that doesn't mean much when applied to the case of personal possesions, as we all deal with possessions differently and appreciate them differently

Haha, by no means am I suggesting we elevate animals to the level of humans, just that they do similar things. I'm reminded of a cartoon that features a frustrated man sitting at his desk, various sheets of paper littering office with striked out messages like "Only humans use tools", "Only humans make music", "Only humans can make art". I'm eliminating the possibility that all people and all animals bond with things in completely incomparable manners is all.

Edited July 11, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[Babybluex]

Ouch, calling me "that moppet" hurts...

I used to be more than a moppet, but that account died away with the forum...I am back to being a moppet now I guess, the sooner I come in terms with it the better

[Guest]

i have now 6 computers in my house with all hardened systems and security audit (check logs) them once per 48 hours (because im just odd)
/>https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardenedUbuntu

when information is downloaded i triple back up data into encrypted drives so if one or 2 fail its no big deal

if my house burns down it will only burn down half the computers / drives

the meaning of life = "life is shit, and then you die"

or
/>http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=%22Life%27s%20a%20Bitch%20and%20Then%20You%20Die%22

so yeah...

[Leviathan87]

im now cursed because after reading this post yesterday... my drive died

[Babybluex]

im now cursed because after reading this post yesterday... my drive died

Ouch, that must've hurt. Just for the record, I have lost another hard drive since the date of this post, but I am now more careful; I try to copy the important data to two external hard drives instead of just one.

I tried using Blu-ray disks for a while, was too much hassle though, so turned back to my old "fetish", hard drives.

SSDs are quite nice to have if you can afford them that is

i have now 6 computers in my house with all hardened systems and security audit (check logs) them once per 48 hours (because im just odd)

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardenedUbuntu

when information is downloaded i triple back up data into encrypted drives so if one or 2 fail its no big deal

if my house burns down it will only burn down half the computers / drives

the meaning of life = "life is shit, and then you die"

or

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=%22Life%27s%20a%20Bitch%20and%20Then%20You%20Die%22

so yeah...

Truth is, I don't think that's odd at all, and if I could afford it, I would've done the same as you. Unfortunately, having a wife and son is a huge financial burden; they fill your life with pleasure, but they also use up every bit of money and energy you might have at the end of the day.

 

Life is shit! Hmmm, quite the statement there. I believe life is more like food that's starting to rot. You find bits and pieces that can be enjoyed, so if you take away the rotten, smelly pieces, you still have a little something to bite on in the end, even if sometimes you feel it's not even worth "shit"