Tuan's Blog

I've been on a slow walk away from the big cloud services for a while now. Google Drive and OneDrive worked fine, but every upload came with that small tug – who else gets to look at this?

Proton Drive was my first stop. On paper it ticked every box, but the desktop client felt slow and half-finished, and I kept second-guessing whether things had actually uploaded. I'll probably give it another shot in a year or two, Proton ships steadily and I think they'll get there.

Filen was next. Solid encryption, generous pricing, but the day-to-day never clicked. Sometimes a tool just doesn't fit the shape of how you work, even when nothing is technically wrong with it.

So now I'm packing up again. Next stop is Seafile.

The library model – grouping files into separate encrypted libraries instead of one giant drive – matches how I already think about my data. Clinic stuff, personal stuff, photos, writing, homelab notes; they really shouldn't all live in the same bucket.

The other piece that sold me is that rclone supports Seafile, which means I can move my Nextcloud data over without my desktop being involved at all. The servers which hosted them have far better internet than I do up here in Whitehorse. Server-to-server, no desktop running overnight. I just kick off rclone, walk away, and let the two machines do their thing.

I want to see if Seafile's reputation for being fast and reliable holds up. Every cloud service looks great in week one. The real question is month four, when you've pushed real data through it and watched it sync after a power blip. That's when you find out if a tool deserves to stay.

I'll write again once I know.

-Tuan

I learned the term recently: hurry sickness. The compulsive needs to race toward the next thing, mistaken often for ambition. I do this. I treat the present like a waiting room – something to survive until the real part begins.

Lately I've been mourning being eighteen. Which is absurd, because I was not happy at eighteen. But at twenty-eight, ten years later, I look back on that period with a tenderness my teen self would not recognize. Memory is a stealthy editor. It buries the dread and keeps only the soft parts.

Which means my future self is already doing this to right now.

Somewhere ahead, a version of you has everything sorted. The restlessness settled, the ambition paid out, the questions finally answered. And that person – the one you're so desperate to become – sits with the strange grief of someone who got what they wanted. They'd give it back, all of it, to be here again. To not yet know how it turns out.

I'm not interested in forced gratitude or pretending the hard parts aren't hard. But I think I need to let this chapter count – the side projects slowly taking shape, the accumulation of small skills and stranger experiences, the particular uncertainty of this age that I'll one day describe as freedom. These are becoming the past I'll miss.

The ask isn't to be grateful every minute. It's just: show up for your life before it becomes something you used to have.

-Tuan

Swan Haven on a sunny weekend was interesting – apparently every other person in Whitehorse had the same idea we did. Kero took one look at the crowd and did the thing he always does when he's overwhelmed: ran into a corner and hide.

I crouched down next to him. He was doing that thing where his ears go sideways and his tail does this slow, unhappy twitch.

We lasted maybe twenty minutes.

I had this whole picture in my head before we left – him sniffing pine needles, picking his way through the grass, doing little curious cat things. The reality was a very small, very stressed black cat who just wanted to be back in his place.

And honestly? That's fine. First times are allowed to be short. He learned something today, even if it wasn't what I'd planned: the world is big and loud, and when it gets to be too much, his person scoops him up and takes him home. That's not a bad lesson.

We'll try again. Early morning next time, midweek, when it's just us and the trees and maybe a swan or two.

Next time, buddy.

-Tuan

Sleepless, I decided to do something. I needed answers. I started searching the house, methodically, desperately. I found a locked drawer in the study. After a few minutes of fiddling, I managed to pick the lock. Inside, there was a small box. Inside the box, a USB drive and a note. The note was in my handwriting, but I didn't recognize the words. 'Don't trust anyone. They know. Protect the truth.' My blood ran cold. What truth? Who were 'they'? I grabbed the USB drive, my hands shaking. I needed to know what was on it, but I was also terrified of what I might find.

I rushed to the computer, my hands clumsy as I plugged in the USB drive. It was password protected. A wave of frustration washed over me. Of course it was. I stared at the password prompt, racking my brain. What was important to me? What was important to the 'me' who wrote that note? I tried Jasmine's name. No luck. My supposed birthday. Nope. My college. Still nothing. Hours passed, and I was no closer to unlocking the drive. Desperation began to set in. I needed to know what was on that drive. It felt like my life depended on it. Finally, in a moment of inspiration, I typed in a word: 'password'. The drive unlocked. I laugh, feel like this is such a classic from me.

The drive contained a series of video files, each labelled with a date. I clicked on the most recent one. It was me, sitting in front of the same computer, looking directly at the camera. 'If you're watching this,' I said, my voice sounding strained and unfamiliar, 'then I've lost my memory again. They're getting closer. You have to remember Project Nightingale. It's the key. Find Dr. Albright. She can help you. DON'T TRUST ANYONE' The video cut off abruptly. Project Nightingale? Dr. Albright? What did any of it mean?

My head swam. Project Nightingale? It sounded like something out of a spy movie. I clicked on the next video, dated a week earlier. This time, I looked even more haggard, my eyes filled with fear. 'They're watching me,' I whispered, my voice barely audible. 'I can feel it. They know I remember something. I have to be careful. Don't trust Jasmine. I don't know if she's one of them.' The video ended, leaving me reeling. Don't trust Jasmine? But she was my wife... wasn't she? Doubt gnawed at me. Was this all some elaborate game? Was I being manipulated?

As I watched the videos, I realized something: the dates were getting closer and closer to today. Each video was a desperate attempt to remind myself of something before my memory was wiped clean again. I frantically clicked through the remaining videos, piecing together fragments of information. Project Nightingale was some kind of experiment, something I was involved in. It had something to do with memory, with altering the human mind. And Dr. Albright... she was the key, the only one who could help me understand what was happening.

“I rushed to the computer, my hands clumsy as I plugged in the USB drive. It was password protected. A wave of frustration washed over me. Of course it was. I stared at the password prompt, racking my brain. What was important to me? What was important to the 'me' who wrote that note? I tried Jasmine's name. No luck. My supposed birthday. Nope. My college. Still nothing. Hours passed, and I was no closer to unlocking the drive. Desperation began to set in. I needed to know what was on that drive. It felt like my life depended on it. Finally, in a moment of inspiration, I typed in a word: 'Amnesia'. The drive unlocked.”

“The drive contained a series of video files, each labelled with a date. I clicked on the most recent one. It was me, sitting in front of the same computer, looking directly at the camera. 'If you're watching this,' I said, my voice sounding strained and unfamiliar, 'then I've lost my memory again. They're getting closer. You have to remember Project Nightingale. It's the key. Find Dr. Albright. She can help you.' The video cut off abruptly. Project Nightingale? Dr. Albright? What did any of it mean?”

A chilling realization washed over me. This wasn't the first time this had happened. The way 'I' in the video spoke, the urgency in my voice, it all pointed to a recurring nightmare. I clicked on an older video, dated several months prior. In that video, I looked confused, disoriented, but not as panicked. 'If you're seeing this,' I said, 'you've probably lost your memory again. It's happening more frequently now. This time, it took you almost a week to realize something was wrong. They're getting better at erasing me.' A week? Last time, it had only taken a few hours for me to notice. Now, it was almost an entire day.

I frantically clicked through the videos, each one a snapshot of a progressively deteriorating mind. The earliest videos were almost calm, matter-of-fact. Later ones were filled with terror and desperation. In one video, I was frantically scribbling notes, trying to create a system, a way to trigger my memory before it was too late. 'The bus,' I wrote. 'It always happens on the bus. Something triggers it. Stay away from the bus!' But it was too late. The bus had already claimed me again.

-Tuan

Sitting on the bus on my way home, I pondered the day. The bus was packed with people, jostling and chatting. The engine roared and the brakes squeaked. In the seat, I couldn’t remember anything. The bus pulled up to my stop, and I got off.

I stumbled along the familiar streets, feeling lost and disoriented. What had I done all day? Why couldn’t I remember anything? This must be a symptom of some kind of disease. By the time I arrived home, everything seemed normal. My wife greeted me, asking about my day at work. But something was off. The person in front of me wasn’t my wife. At least, she wasn’t in my limited memory.

Everything that evening seemed slightly off. I couldn’t even remember her name. After I greeted her, I rushed to our bedroom and looked through some papers, hoping to find her name somewhere. It was Jasmine, my best friend from college. I didn’t remember marrying her.

“Honey, the food got delivered, I got what you want from earlier, come out and eat with me,” Jasmine called out to me.

I walked out of the bedroom, a little bit confused. I couldn’t remember what I had wanted for dinner, but apparently it was black bean noodle. At least I got my favourite right.

“Jasmine, how was your day?” I asked, eager to learn more about this woman who seemed to be my wife.

“It was just the usual stuff, nothing out of the ordinary. I had about 125 guests today, so the restaurant was pretty crowded, but we were well-prepared, so it was rather chill. How about yours?” Jasmine smiled.

Now I know that my wife is a chef in a restaurant. That sounded awesome. Now what was I supposed to say to her?

“It was rather uneventful for me,” I said, deciding to give her the closest thing to the truth. “I can’t remember anything.”

Jasmine’s smile faded. “Oh,” she said. “What, do you mean nothing at all? Are you not telling me something”

“No, it just pretty normal, I will not bore you with the detail. Just another bad day, I guess.” I laughed nervously, before I know what is going on, I should keep this as a secret.

The conversation surprisingly flows well, considered I didn’t remember anything before I board the bus. This feeling is slowing drives me insane, what am I doing before boarding the bus. I'm starting to open my phone and check my location history, I always have it on to recorded everywhere I go. I focus on the small dot through alley and street, nothing seems out of the ordinary. The memory starting to come back to me as I follow the dot, I remember my day until the dot go into the bus, right at that point, my mind goes blank. My whole mind become a tornado of information which I couldn’t outrun, every detail I can remember, it just goes in the tornado and spin around and around to an eventually unrecognizable

After dinner, Jasmine went to bed. I stayed up for a while, staring at the ceiling. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but I was determined to find out.

The next morning, I look in Jasmine spot and realize she has been gone for hours. I just realized I don’t even know where I work, or which occupation am I.

-Tuan