These last two days I have been going back through my computer files for the last decade or so. This is because we are presenting a course at the Siggraph computer graphics conference, which will include a retrospective of our lab’s research.
It’s quite a remarkable experience going back through the last decade or so of your life. The memory gets jogged in all sorts of interesting ways.
I am rediscovering memories of people and places I have not thought about for quite a while. And I am getting a sense of what my mindset was back then — which in many ways was very different from the way I think now.
If you are the sort of person who keeps around files from years ago, I highly recommend this sort of retrospective exercise. Go back and look at all your files, in chronological order.
The experience of visiting with your past self can be fascinating, if possibly unsettling. You may just learn a thing or two.