[Prompted by a post from @Louanne Learning on another forum.] If you were going to assemble a personal or family time capsule, to be opened in 2044, what would you include? So far all I've come up with is an old mobile phone, with Contacts and Messages intact.
I remembered a thread I made a while ago thanks to this one. Link: https://www.writingforums.org/threads/time-capsule.166186/ And what I wrote there is what I would include in a personal time capsule. Basically, questions for myself. Thanks!
The best family time capsules tell stories of where all the family members are at that time. If I were to write an entry into a family time capsule today, I would write about my many nieces and nephews and grand-nieces and nephews and where they are now compared to how grown-up they'll be in 2044. But I wouldn't ignore world news. Paint the year. Hopefully by 2044, Trump will be a distant memory!
I also forgot to mention, a time capsule should mention predictions. I predict by 2044, life will go on much the same, but Taylor Swift will take a break from releasing albums.
Since all her tunes seem to be about dumping/being dumped by various men, maybe she'll marry Kelce and switch to chamber music.
Besides Trump and Taylor Swift, other trends/happenings of 2023 - Barbie, Miley Cyrus, AI, Israel/Palestine.
Make sure you put a charger in for said mobile , in twenty years it’s unlikely to be compatible with the ones in use. in ref of other ideas, copies of current news, photos both of family and the local area, best selling books, music etc The other thing about this is that 2044 is maybe a bit close for a time capsule, I don’t have any problems remembering 2004 and we have photos etc a time capsule would be more interesting if it was going to be opened in like 2124 when the things it contains would actually be historic
Good point. I chose 2044 because 20 years is a round number, and mostly because it's very unlikely I'll still be around. Considering how much the pace of 'progress' has accelerated, and should continue to do so, 100 years might be too far out, though. Items in a time capsule assembled in 1850 wouldn't have amused/astonished many people in 1900, but going from 1950 to 2000 would have, I think.
Not exactly on point, but . . . . I came across a book published in 2011, called Deadline Artists, a collection of newspaper columns written in the early 20th Century through the early 21st (back when print media still mattered), and by writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Damon Runyon, and William White, among many others, some famous, some people I didn't know of. Most of the columns are from the 20th Century, many from the '50s and before, about things some of which I knew of, some I didn't. My point is that in reading these columns there is so much background that is presumed from the era in which they are written, like snapshots of times gone by. A time capsule of sorts.
