So, naturally, I became obsessed. I traced the file’s metadata. The creation date was November 17th, 2013. 11:43 PM. I was 22 years old. What was I doing in 2013? Listening to Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories on repeat and drinking terrible energy drinks while pulling all-nighters in my college dorm.
It’s just the person you used to be.
At first, I thought it was a cat walking across my keyboard. I tried to delete it. Access denied. I tried to rename it. Error. This file, with its chaotic, gibberish name, was apparently the digital equivalent of a locked safe buried in the woods.
I have absolutely no memory of creating this file. ggfhdtyhrtjzedhdsrhsfhtethzdbnj.rar
I stared at the filename itself. ggfhdtyhrtjzedhdsrhsfhtethzdbnj
I typed: brokencontroller
And the cat photo? It was a grainy picture of a stray tabby that used to sit outside my window. I had named him “Captain Pancakes.” I had completely forgotten about Captain Pancakes. We all have a ggfhdtyhrtjzedhdsrhsfhtethzdbnj.rar somewhere in our lives. Not a literal file, but a locked box of awkward, earnest, forgotten creativity. We look at the chaotic, random-looking exterior of our past—the bad haircuts, the terrible music, the weird projects—and we think it’s junk. So, naturally, I became obsessed
The MP3 was a terrible, beautiful, cringe-worthy electronic song I had made using a free trial of Fruity Loops. It was titled “Anthem for Nothing.” It sounded like a robot falling down stairs, and I loved every second of it.
ggfhdtyhrtjzedhdsrhsfhtethzdbnj.rar
So, go find your .rar file. Dig through that old hard drive. Flip through that 2013 journal. The password is probably easier than you think. 11:43 PM
A single file, sitting in a folder labeled “Old_Stuff_Ignore.” The file was named:
Last week, I was doing my annual digital spring cleaning—deleting old memes, organizing vacation photos, and facing the graveyard of half-finished coding projects. That’s when I saw it.