A few weeks ago, we were at the Brambles, and we saw two geese on the opposite bank staring us down. Really, one goose was staring us down, and the other goose was trying to get her gosling to join its siblings underneath it. The gosling was exploring the river bank and kept coming close to the larger goose, who would rise a bit to encourage the gosling to enter their cover. It took a few minutes for the gosling to finally disappear under the goose, and we told the couple that there was no possible way for us to mess with them. As I said, we were on the opposite bank and not about to swim across.

The moment we walked away, the goose released all of the goslings beneath them.

I feel a little like that goose right now, wishing both kids were home.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second, helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding in NZ is featured in a new book, but the post is also about the importance of sharing your story. As she’s reading the other essays in the book, she comments: “She mentioned an experience I thought I alone had had. But of course, I wasn’t the only one. And although I felt alone, I was not.” Stories reduce loneliness and isolation.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled has gripes and pleasures. I don’t know why the bear question is having a renaissance now vs. all of the other times over the years that I’ve heard it. Or why men are just hearing it (seemingly?) for the first time. Though I’m all for men understanding what additional factors balance into decisions. And totally agree on the price of books. And I’ll add to the list — movies.

The roundup to the Roundup: Feeling like a goose. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between May 3 – May 10) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week. Read the original open thread post here.

I am a few weeks away from a milestone birthday, making me sentimental and reflective.

Do you know the Ship of Theseus thought experiment? It comes from the story of Theseus. Wikipedia explains: “Each year, the Athenians would commemorate this by taking the ship on a pilgrimage to Delos to honour Apollo. A question was raised by ancient philosophers: After several hundreds of years of maintenance, if each individual piece of the Ship of Theseus was replaced, one after the other, was it still the same ship?”

Are we the same? Are you the same person if your body replaces all of your cells? Our bodies do that to the tune of billions of cells per day.

About 330 billion cells are replaced daily, equivalent to about 1 percent of all our cells. In 80 to 100 days, 30 trillion will have replenished—the equivalent of a new you.

What about if your belief system is dismantled and replaced? What about your values? What if you lose your memories one by one? Are you still you?

And if you’re not you, who are you?

Inside of me are fifty versions of Melissa, a patchwork quilt of Melissas. I can only identify a handful of things that were true at birth that are still true now, and maybe a handful more if we count from upper childhood. Everything else has been overwritten or replaced, like Theseus’s ship.

I’m just trying to mentally unpack it, trace the changes, and remember who I was and what I may be in the future.

I’ve been limiting how much news I consume for a long time, either setting a timer when I think I’ll need the reminder or simply noting the time when I begin reading with a promise to get off after 10 – 15 minutes. Reading the news makes me upset because it’s all terrible, and it is better to read until informed and then move away to process instead of continuing to read opinion after opinion, each telling me that the world is absolutely definitely going to end.

Is it the end of the world?

It feels different, but then I see pieces like that, and I realize that I’ve said before it feels different. So maybe we’re 100% in a state of falling apart, but it never comes?

There is this:

A peer-reviewed 2021 survey of people aged between 16 and 25 around the world found that 56% agreed with the statement “Humanity is doomed”. In a 2020 YouGov poll, nearly one in three Americans said they expected an apocalyptic event in their lifetimes, with the Christian Judgment Day relegated to fourth place by a pandemic, climate change and nuclear war; zombies and aliens brought up the rear.

The end of the article perhaps has the answer.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I have reservations about calling a person a yuck, but what do you do when a favourite talk show, podcast, or fill-in-the-blank for your favourite interview medium has on a guest that you don’t want to hear? I mean, I know the simple answer is to skip the episode, but I’m curious if people skip the episode. Or do they listen, watch, or read because there are often openings or closings that don’t contain the words and thoughts of the person who annoys/upsets/distresses you?

Do you skip the episode if you enjoy the host but feel annoyed/turned off by the guest??

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

Once upon a time, children, we traveled with travel guides because we did not have mobile devices. If we wanted to know where to stay or eat, we needed to look it all up in this paper contraption called a book.

The series I liked pointed you to the big tourist spots and had little sidebars that told you about lesser-known attractions, such as visiting Palazzo Zuccari when you were done with the Spanish Steps in Rome. I loved those little sidebars because I thought I was seeing something special. Everyone knew about the Spanish Steps, but all the people using those other travel books didn’t know about Palazzo Zuccari, right? Not counting all the other people standing in front of Palazzo Zuccari holding the same book.

Travel isn’t seeing the unknown as much as seeing the known with your own eyes. Except for unplanned interactions with other people or stumbling into a great randomly chosen restaurant, most travel is about going to see and do things you have seen images of or heard about. It’s not discovering insomuch as witnessing.

But how can you travel so far and not see the things the place is famous for?

We’re planning a trip right now, so I’m thinking about that balance between witnessing the known while leaving time for wandering, which may or may not lead us to something interesting, something not in a tour book.