this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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There is a bit of a romantic feeling in only having a physical copy of a photo though, and Polaroids are the easiest ones to do this with.
And that's completely valid, but I just want to warn others that physical items deteriorate.
I'm currently digitally archiving photos of my great-great grandparents. You know how disappointing it is to have these photos, but then see they are all water damaged or torn or crumbled to all hell because of improper storage? Some scans are ok, others are terrible and will require work on my end to restore them digitally.
I'm sure we have thousands of digital photos of ourselves, but how many of those are backed up properly? How many of us will be regretting not backing things up properly and we can't share these photos with our grandkids or great grandkids or to reminisce because our phones died or Instagram shutdown or we stopped paying for iCloud?
All I'm saying is take your Polaroids, but also take plenty of digital photos and back them up as well.
Digital things degrade too, and faster than youd think
And drives can fail. And data can get corrupted. You could get a virus.
You deteriorate. We all deteriorate. What's the point of that illusion of having a perfect eternal storage medium for data? It's the experience that matters.
What's the point of having the experience when our memory deteriorates?
See how stupid that argument sounds?
Guess what, you can do both!
I can't note anything sound 'stupid' there.
Experiences AND memories do vanish. That's a fact, it's completely natural and fine and it's not a general necessity to fight against that. I found that it is possible to accept transience.
Guess what, we can have new experiences any moment.
Spending much time and money to preserve all the present experiences without gaps and to combat the fleeting nature of all things and to capture every moment of my life for the future seems wasteful. I did this too in the past but the older I get the more I find that I'd rather spend my time in the present moment than in the archive.
Not having so much, being more. The more we collect and accumulate, the more that holds us back.
But hey, I don't want to discourage anyone and I can understand the approach.