I'm writing you from the future, where memories are auto-saved whether you like it or not

We are going on a quick family trip tomorrow and, as I was packing my "documentation dad lite" load out– a kit which consists of a mini drone, accessories and spare batteries, a 4K video camera and a hand-held gimbal-- a feeling of profound appreciation of how mind-blowing it is to be living in the future washed over me.

Honestly, I have never seen a photo of my grand parents from their youth; There is maybe a handful of grainy photos of my parents when they were in their 20's--no videos. I have a good number of photos taken with film cameras and a couple of VHS tapes' worth of memories from my own youth which were shot by my dad with a  shoulder-mounted camcorder.

Chael, my son, on the other hand is going to have photos and videos of him stored in the cloud from ever since he was born. He will have photos and videos taken at altitude by a robot aircraft that runs on magic. He will have photos and videos shot by a camera that fits the palm of my hand at resolutions that are better than the eye can see and is stabilized by a hand-held contraption with tiny motors powered by sorcery and witchcraft.

He will have photos of him enhanced by Augmented Reality making him look like he has the ears and nose of a dog taken by a device that has access to all the data in the world.And all of these things fit in a bag that was about the size of the lunch box I lugged around when I was in grade school.

As the feeling of awe started to subside, it was abruptly replaced by worry and me thinking "Holy shit, I wrote some really stupid things online back in the day. I also have some pretty wild, indecent pictures which I'm sure still exists at some forgotten corner of the internet.  Chael can probably find them if he looked hard enough."

From there on, the future seemed like a horrible place to be living in.