29-jul-01 - written, but not proofread or spellchecked

Mentally in the Past

Why am I so fascinated by the past?  I don't quite understand why it is that I'll happily go 
along for a few days, weeks, months, whatever, and then I'll look through some old text files 
that I made, that describe the history of the Chippewa Valley BBSing scene as far as I had seen 
it.  Then I'm off down memory lane, while simultaneously bemoning the fact that I'm not 
accomplishing certain things now that I was accomplishing then, and then thinking about how I 
should attempt to do such things now.

Of course, then I think about it for a moment, and I realize that, first of all, doing the same
things over again really wouldn't accomplish much, and secondly, if I did do them over again,
I probably wouldn't do them with the same emotional intensity and desire to get it done.  Mostly
because I've done it before, and there really isn't much to prove.  To illustrate the point,
there's my BBS, Storm BBS.  I enjoyed running it, and while I technically had it up in Ripon,
given the fact that I was the only BBS in town, and I had no way of cheaply contacting people
in Ripon that had modems and knew what BBSs were, well, that meant that I didn't get any callers,
and thus didn't have a BBS worth calling.

Anyway, I ran my BBS in Chippewa Falls, and it was successful, getting 6000+ callers over the
year that I had it up.  But, what was further impressive about it was the fact that it was
probably the first time that I had really kept pestering my dad to allow me to do something that
he didn't want me to do, namely to keep my computer running all the time, so that I could have
people call the BBS.  If I were at home now, I don't think it'd matter at all, but my dad used
to be much more concerned about saving those couple of dollars a month than he is now.  Beyond
that, I think he failed to understand that even though I wasn't at my computer, it was still
being used, and thus not a waste of electricity.  The point of all this is that I refused to
accept, "no" from my dad for just about the first time in my life.  Not that I've ever had any
major clashes with him before or since, but it is kind of a mile marker of life.

The other important thing about the BBS was that I put a lot of sustained energy into making it
a quality product.  Certainly, some days were more fruitful than others, but I had been planning
the BBS for a couple of years at that point(mind, it would have been less had I had money, but
even when I did have the money and the computer to pull it off, I did things slowly to make
sure that I did them right.  i.e., having advertisements on other BBSs to hype my BBS before
its opening.), and after the BBS went up, I kept on making it better, responding to users,
taking care of the random stalkings, organizing BBS get togethers.  Altogether, it was rather
more effort and responsibility successfully carried out than I had done previously, and
realistically, have done since.

To tie this back into the topic of the essay, I yearn for the days that I ran a successful BBS,
because it was something that I led and at which I was successful.  In my eye to the past,
nothing has come all that close to this accomplishment since, for one reason or another.  Ask
me about my success in college, in starting Blueprint, or even in the library.  Some things
aren't successful(like Blueprint), some have occasional, but short-term, successes(like college), and some lack
a higher level of responsibility or ability to create(library work).  The BBS fulfilled all of
those qualifications.

So I often think back to the times when I was successful, when I did something good/special/
meaningful, etc.  Yet I know that getting stuck in the past is counterproductive, and that I
will never accomplish much of note if I'm looking backwards rather than forwards.  That being
said, it'd be nice to know what next I'll succeed in, and when I'll succeed in it.

Comments, anyone?  Do any of you think about your past, and what you've accomplished, and yearn
to relive some of those experiences?  Is this just something that you haven't thought about at
all?  E-mail me.