It can be hard to let go.
A couple of decades ago there was a burgeoning sense that the emergent internet meant information would be preserved forever, crystallized into magnetic pattern and within easy reach of anyone who cared to see it. Every fact and theory, every book and film, digitized and flawlessly preserved, a great library open to all. The promise of the future was one in which nothing would ever be lost, nothing would ever be forgotten. This promise fit together into another, unspoken, that the eventual extension of this idea would be some form of immortality, some digital memorization of the person, the mind, the soul, that extended indefinitely beyond the death of the fragile human frame from which it was derived. It was all very outlandish, but, still, it was a common shared dream, something that seemed perhaps not within reach yet but, someday…
A few people still seem to cling to these ideals – mostly billionaires and their sycophants who have the means to see whatever information they deem valuable preserved to their satisfaction, available to all humanity for a nominal fee. The rest of us can’t help but notice how many things seem to fall through the cracks, seem to never gets preserved. A careful observer may, in fact, notice that many of these artifacts get intentionally trampled over and buried. Archives of fan-works and curiosities get bulldozed to make legal space for rereleases and sequels, monetizing the dreams of unfettered access to and preservation of our past which we once cherished. In the end, things are as they ever were – that which gets preserved is that which can be sold again and again and again, the immortal homunculi, the Batmen and Mickey Mouses.
We were promised eternity and given monthly charges. We were promised no more burning Libraries of Alexandria, but the libraries are burning faster than ever, with new decoy libraries of alternative fact springing up everywhere, full of lies and ads, promising redemption through cruelty. The one thing that gets preserved indefinitely, free of charge, are those uncomfortable personal memories we wish we could leave behind – these, too, mined for profit, converted into #content.
All of our memories are up in the cloud, which means our past goes with the wind. Here’s a story about how media gets preserved: Many people are familiar with the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life, but fewer know why it’s a classic. It’s a Wonderful Life released in 1946 to lukewarm reviews and disappointed box office takes, quickly sinking into obscurity – far enough into obscurity, in fact, that the studio forgot to maintain the copyright, and it lapsed into the public domain in 1974. Before long, television networks noticed there was a film in the public domain – or virtually so, as the short story it was based on was still receiving royalties – and all raced to repeatedly air this forgotten classic – with Jimmy Stewart starring and Frank Capra directing, it had to be great! Which, as it happens, it is now acknowledged to be.
This story is not to say that there’s anything wrong with It’s a Wonderful Life. I haven’t seen it, but it’s beloved and probably justly so – but how close did it come to being completely forgotten? If it hadn’t lapsed into the public domain, would it even be possible to see this film any more? Is that the only barrier that lies between something being a foundational text of American cultural heritage and it being lost in a warehouse until it decays or burns, like so many old films before it?
When there’s a conflict between art and money, money wins. The beloved series of 60s-spy-film-parody shooter games, No One Lives Forever, lives in copyright hell, with no one entirely sure who holds the rights, unable to be iterated on, sold, or played. Nintendo rereleases and rerereleases and rererereleases their old library, selling the same product endlessly, while brutally hounding down the enthusiast sites and fan-games that kept passions for these games high enough to allow them to profit off rereleases in the first place. Classic films get divided like carcasses between warring packs of hyena stream services, left to rot in favor of the most recent blockbuster or anything that might turn a quick cheap buck. Only the art that draws eyes with attached wallets gets preserved for long.
I find, now, that I am being slowly and painfully separated from the illusions of eternity that once seemed nearly in reach, that I need to learn a mode of artistic creation that moves with time rather than trying to outlive it. I find that I must embrace transience. It’s a comforting thing for an artist to believe that the things we create may last forever, or at least long outlive us – and sometimes, for a lucky few, it’s true. But how much rarer that must be, with the above in mind, for those who do not seek to flatter power with their art. The art which has survived centuries are largely the portraits by and for nobility and the church, the stories which grace the prestigious and which flatter the famous. There’s a centuries-long survivor bias which creates a long-form propaganda of stories of kings and millionaires and those who serve them, and slowly grindingly rewrites all other stories to fit that mold.
We have to reject the illusion of immortal relevance if we’re to say anything of worth. Doodle around the edges, speak out of turn, be stupid and vulgar, be self-indulgent, be cringe. The most free time of my day is the time I spend cooking, because this is a form of art that can be tasted, digested, and forgotten – and have its meaning enhanced, not undermined, by the inexorable passage of time.