#100: The Time Capsule
Marking the passing of time and the writing of 100 blog posts
Today’s post is a little bit different, because to commemorate our 100th object we have decided to make a time capsule, an object which contains yet more objects, and through them, a moment of time.
A time capsule is:
“a historic cache of goods or information, usually intended as a method of communication with future people and to help future archaeologists, anthropologists, or historians.”
It is a specific collection of objects with a sole focus of preservation for future knowledge. Ours is a personal capsule, to be opened when we reach our 200th object. It celebrates today’s special moment, our 100th object, by looking to the future, to our next anniversary.
Below are the objects we have each chosen to put in our little time capsule.
The Used Postage Stamp
A simple postage stamp, one of many thousands made. I wrote a few weeks back about the special quality added to a greetings card sent in the post, and that quality is applied when a little stamp like this is stuck on the top right corner. In years to come, will there still be a postal service? Will they still use stamps? Yet not only do these tiny little squares allow a letter to be sent many miles, but they also commemorate history: they are themselves mini ‘time capsules’. This one simply has our Queen’s profile, others commemorate holidays or anniversaries, like the Royal Mail’s latest special stamps: Landmark Buildings. People still collect these little squares, both functional, decorative, and historical. Perhaps this common stamp will prove more interesting in the future, whenever it is found. Though I don’t suppose it will have changed much by our 200th post.
The To-Do List
We all write to-do lists, whether its on paper, on our phones, or the backs of our hands. They help us to remember the many things we have to do each day or week, important jobs we may otherwise forget. This is one of my recent to-do lists, where some jobs have been completed, and others remain to be completed in the future. We are in a culture which loves lists at the moment, with numerous list apps and notebooks. It is a sign of our obsession with ‘productivity’, providing a small physical representation of everything we have done or need to do. Yet however much a to-do list may help our productivity, having a to-do list does not equal a completed to-do list. They help us remember jobs, and they taunt us from the page until we can legitimately cross them out, but it is we who must complete these tasks.
Katie’s Selfie
The selfie is the phenomenon of our age, powered by our front-facing cameras. It is a way for the lone traveller to preserve memories of their adventures while including themselves in the story. It is also a way to document how your outward appearance changes over time. Just google ‘a photo a day video’ to find multiple people’s videos made from still images, tracking their outward appearance over time. Eleanor and I decided to each include a selfie in our time capsule, but it wasn’t until we had to take them that we encountered a problem: we didn’t like any of the photos we were taking. I, like Eleanor and many others, do not enjoy looking at myself in photographs. To try and take a photo for this blog post and time capsule I took a multitude of photos: smiling, straight face, looking at the camera, facing away, laughing, pulling a funny face. I settled on the photo above, my most automatic ‘selfie face’ which doesn’t include me looking ridiculous. It’s a fascinating phenomenon, as so many of us take selfies, yet so many of us don’t like photos of ourselves. I love them for the memories they preserve rather than the selfie itself.
The Café Loyalty Card
Coffee is a regular feature of my daily life, a personal pause or a sociable slurp. I remember mine and Katie’s post-exams trip to this same café, drinking coffee, nibbling muffins, and talking. This card I picked up today, however, comes with a particular story, the story of how I managed to gain so many stamps from just one cup of coffee. Stepping into the café, I nearly knocked out a waiter, but I managed to order my drink only to find they had a £5 minimum spend for card. Instead of buying a slice of cake or graciously leaving, I started explaining in detail about the ketchup coated cash machine that had thwarted my previous efforts to get cash, and left the café with the ominous words ‘I’ll be back’… On return, the staff had remembered my order and gave me this generously-stamped loyalty. I suppose perhaps I had displayed extra loyalty by actually coming back, or perhaps they just found my awkwardness amusing… Either way, I hope I can try to fill this card once we reopen the capsule.
The Shopping List
If you read my previous post on bullet journals, you will know I am a fan of all types of lists, and shopping lists are no exception. I think the parachuting pea on this paper is testament to my current panic about growing up. The only intriguing item on this list, I think, is ‘Work fruit,’ which is not fruit I will enslave to write articles on my behalf, but fruit I can easily eat at my desk without covering it in a sticky coating of juice (think cash machine ketchup style). Helpfully, writing this post has reminded me of a couple of items I missed from this list. Excuse me while I pop to Tesco…
Eleanor’s Selfie
Hello, might I introduce myself, this is Ms Eleanor May Scorah, aged twenty-one and eleven months (definitely not ‘nearly twenty-two’). I decided to make this as honest as possible and not wear make-up, mainly because today just did not feel like a day for wearing make-up. Don’t ask me why, it just felt wrong today… Here, I have short hair and a badly-behaved fringe, both of which could possibly be quite sophisticated if I wasn’t too lazy/inept to style my hair properly. I hope perhaps this has changed in the future… I suppose that is current me in a nutshell: ‘nearly but not quite together’.
Now all we need to do is collect the objects together, seal them in a container, and, like the adventurous pirates we are, find somewhere to bury our treasure. Stay tuned to find out how that goes...
But our time capsule is more than just a buriable object. In fact, we have made two time capsules: the physical object and this virtual post. The question is, which one will last the longest?
Katie writes a weekly blog post about random objects that she finds in her everyday life. If you’re interested in reading more, check out her blog Object, a collaboration with fellow Medium blogger Eleanor, and sign up for the monthly newsletter below.
Eleanor is a writer using her skills in over-analysis to write a weekly blog post about everyday objects. To read more, check out her blog Object, a collaboration with fellow Medium blogger Katie.
