Who Was That Guy?

As I republished this blog at this new URL, I reintroduced the entire post history of my blog to the world (when my old host gave up on me, my entire blog disappeared... except from Google's storage servers...). I spent a good chunk of time from June 2002 (almost 9 years ago!) to December of 2008 typing and typing and typing away, making attempts to put my thoughts into a written format that would somehow express who I am.  Looking back, I sometimes wonder who the heck it was that I was.

It's amazing to scan back through old posts from years ago to catch a glimpse of who I was, or at least the me that I wanted portrayed to anyone who somehow stumbled onto my blog. Simply reading things I wrote from years back, I can definitely tell you that people change. I like to think that I've been consistent and not really made any significant shifts in who I am, and I genuinely think that's true, but there are enough little changes that I can see that make me wonder if they don't all add up to a tectonic shift in my underlying identity. 

I can guarantee you I often didn't give a lot of thought to what I was writing back in the heyday of my blog, but part of that was because I just wanted to generate content and provide a record of the events of the day and my associated feelings or thoughts. That lack of filter has led to some very interesting reads as I do actually look back on those recountings since, many times, the memories I currently have will differ a bit and the emotions I have attached to those events are definitely much different than what was hastily typed out shortly after those events.

Assuming I actually continue to keep this blog running again (I did manage to do it for 6+ years last time...), I'm extremely curious to look back on it in 5, 10, 20, or more years' time to see, again, how I have matured (or devolved... we'll see).  The internet, despite its ability to keep alive every embarrassing thing you've ever done, is also a phenomenal source for engaging in nostalgia. I can only imagine what it will be like for people who have spent their entire life interacting online and storing pieces of themselves throughout the internet. I didn't experience the internet until my teenage years and didn't really dive into it fully until I was in college. Now, I wonder how I would ever live without it.