The Melancholy of File Backups

After almost a decade of running my current desktop, I’ve hit the point where I ought to cut my losses and start with a fresh build for my needs rather than attempt upgrading. And with a prospective part list and a new build on the horizon, the bittersweet task of backing up files¹ and choosing what I want to carry on to a new computer rears its head once again.

Normally it’s fun, akin to a deep spring clean without the risk of backache, but this time around I found it a more sombre affair.

My current PC has been with me since my late teens, college, my brief stint at uni, and everything since. That part of life where you go ham with experimenting with new things, believing you know who you are, not knowing who you are, and trying to grasp at a sense of identity (something I still struggle with today). Every little project I worked on, each video, countless documents and silly little images I saved… And here I was determining what I wanted to keep.

During the time of owning this PC however, something else happened. Depression. And once more it reared its ugly head as I put countless old files to the side for keeping. As I manage data reaching back to my primary school days, one single intruding thought kept popping up throughout: why am I backing this up?

And to be frank I wish I had some thesis on why aside from I’ve always done this and it feels right. It’s one thing to back up old photos and videos, windows of the past, but computer files? Sure I didn’t save everything I did, but do I really need this 2D sprite I edited back in 2011..? Probably not. But it conveys a sense of self for the moment, and holds a slice of memory I would’ve otherwise forgotten, so it stays.

It’s weird how depression can grab you and your established principles and try to turn them upside down, but with any depressive thoughts, you can’t help but agree with them. No-one will care about this but you, it roars, if you die no-one will look at these files… And to be frank, yeah. I can trust my tech know-all brother to recover and be in charge of my backups if something ever happened to me, and I’m sure he’d add a small bunch of my files to his own backups, but then what? If anything happened to him, if anyone picked up his backup I doubt they’d keep my files, and by extension, me.

Depression aside, as I type this I can’t help but feel like a diminutive Ozymandias – Look upon my works, ye mighty, and I hope you find them as interesting and valuable as I did. Human nature though innit, wanting to be remembered and honoured after possible death.

Whilst I continue to go through a myriad of files and decide which ones I’ll bring along with me, the one thing that really spurred this dour mood was the art folder.

Younger me always wanted to be a digital creative, or at least he idolised them, or wanted the idolisation they received from others. During the period of owning this PC I got into digital 2D art, with the caveat being I didn’t focus on it – I never viewed myself as an artist, I was just some bloke with a graphics tablet who doodled things that’d make people smile or chuckle, and I was alright with that.

To me, artists create art and constantly refine their craft, I always defused myself by saying I was a fool who scribbled. But now, nothing.

Now as mentioned prior, depression and not having a sense of self isn’t the best thing. My time spent doing art online was spent changing focus and identities trying to figure things out – and inevitably after a certain point, none of them felt like me anymore, whatever me is supposed to feel like. These innate feelings of depression and identity are hard to translate.

Looking at the art folder, with plenty of subfolders based on the penname I was using, the platform I was on, names of people a distant memory who I drew things for… The fact that they’re all nought but digital ashes to the wider web (ironically aside from what others have backed up²) after all the passion I had at the time working on them… I can’t succinctly describe the feeling, but getting a look at these repeated glimpses of passion and hope from the past was heavy.

It’s been 7 months now since I last picked up my graphics tablet. Usually when I’d stop doing art, the calling to get back at it would be there after 2 months off. But since then? Not a peep from my mind. I can’t tell how much of it is me finally admitting I’m not a creative, or unmedicated depression once again getting in the way of things. Some days I miss the meditative hyperfocus art would bring on, but when you haven’t any idea of who you are or what you want to create, it gets a little hard to pick up the pen.

In the end, I did decide to backup all of my art.

Sorry this has been a bit of a downer.