I'd hate to lose the ability of just going back 20 years later and read my own thoughts and ideas, to meet the person I was at that point.
I have a project/idea journal that I've had for over 10 years, and going through it sometimes is really fun. I remember being so proud about my code-generation tool that allowed me to quickly start a new html+css project that I was doing that work as a freelancer. Seeing that page in my journal brings up a smile.
> I'd hate to lose the ability of just going back 20 years later and read my own thoughts and ideas, to meet the person I was at that point.
Yeah, my "second-brain" doubles as a journal too, and I have written notebooks from when I first arrived in my "real home country" with basically nothing, and it's always a pleasure to go back to read through and realize (again) how different my life is now.
It's really easy to lose track of our own progress day-to-day, and being able to analyze your past perspectives and situations is like a hack to instant happiness.
I have an archive of all my email going back to 1992. (Granted, this is more accessible prior to 2000 or so when things went unnecessarily to HTML). It is a wonderful resource, not only for practical reasons but also it's like my own personal Pepys diary -- I can tell you what I was doing in 1992 and later on any date. I love reading it, even if I encounter sad messages from mentors who have since passed or significant others decades since the breakup.
I have a project/idea journal that I've had for over 10 years, and going through it sometimes is really fun. I remember being so proud about my code-generation tool that allowed me to quickly start a new html+css project that I was doing that work as a freelancer. Seeing that page in my journal brings up a smile.