One of the problems with computers is the near-infinite amount of digital storage space. You can have multitudes that take up little in the way of actual real estate. No matter how many books I load onto my Kindle, it stays the same size. No matter how many images I upload or download to my computer, it stays the same size.

But I’m aware of the largesse. I’m aware of the quantity of digital content sitting there, waiting for consumption or redistribution, and it stresses me nearly as much as piles of it around the house in the real world would.

I organize it into collections, and folders, and sub-folders, and I name things so they stay identifiable, but still, in the back of my mind is that niggling recognition that they’re there and not dealt with. I have stuff where I don’t need to have stuff. And in the real world, I’m about being streamlined. Sort of. But, I digress.

This incessant collecting is a form of hoarding, but we don’t call it that because our computer crap can mostly fit onto a memory stick – albeit one of the larger ones. Do you remember the early sticks with their 4MB capacity? Back then we had to make decisions about what was important vis a vis saving. But no more. We don’t have to prioritize. Everything is equally valuable.

My brain hates that. Because if everything is important, then nothing is.

Between my phone and desktop, I have five-hundred and twenty-one memes. Some I’ve shared already. I pulled them back into rotation when I realized I want to do this differently. I need freedom, and refiling isn’t it.

Historically, I share them, and then move them to a “shared” sub-folder in the meme folder that lives in the personal folder I keep on the desktop – not to be confused with the document and pictures folders. But that’s less of a help in terms of freeing up mental bandwidth – it’s lateral movement. Everything is still there, on the computer and in the back of my brain, causing a measure of distress.

I now have a new plan – we will share and delete. I can’t delete without sharing because of the anthropomorphism thing wherein I suspect that the images I’ve saved might feel bad for being saved but then never shared. I know this isn’t true, but my tender heart insist on fulfilling the save and share contract. I could not, but that would require some mental work and distress. It’s okay to cater to your neuroses occasionally.

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Day one – fingers crossed we carry one with the plan, though the details – daily, weekly, file dump – are still sketchy in my head. For now, here are four galleries of seventeen images, representing one folder now consigned to the recycle bin. It gets more complicated a few folders down – they get larger. But that’s a problem for future me. This folder is done and dusted, and I feel chuffed.

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