From OSTA, I found that:

• CD-RWs can be rewritten ~1000 times.
• The unrecorded shelf life of both CD-Rs and CD-RWs is anywhere between 5 and 10 years.
• Data on written CD-Rs remain readable from 50 to 200 years.
• Data on written CD-RWs remain readable from 20 to 100 years.

NIST’s special publication 500-200 gave more concrete values. I trust these numbers more.

• The life expectancy with storage at room temperature and 90% humidity is from 57 to 121 years. A relative humidity between 40% and 50% should lead to an even longer life expectancy.

Of course, quality varies from one manufacturer to another, and it will likely also improve over time. But these numbers give a good idea. I guess this confirms that the optical disk is still not only the cheapest, but also the most reliable, form of storage. It’s doubtful that I’ll need the information on my CDs in more than 80 years from now – if I even live to be that old. (Frankly, I prefer to die younger and healthy than to die old, decrepit, and dependent.)

Birth. Life. Death. A meaningless cycle, really. But you can give life a meaning if you want to. From my standpoint, a life is only meaningful if you take the time to learn the essence of the universe and become “one” with it. It is the only way that your essence won’t be isolated from everything else when it becomes unchained from your physical body. It is only then that you can vanish from all existence and become the universe itself.

That put a really poetic twist on an actually very simple idea. Who are we as individuals? Nothing. We are simple manifestations of our surroundings. I don’t care what about us you think is “individual,” it ultimately came from somewhere around us. Our appearances, thoughts, ideas, bodies – they all came from our surroundings and lineage, be it our ancestors, food, or the simple reaction to outside stimuli. Therefore, in truth, there really is no “I” distinguishable from everything else. Individuality is an illusion – how can we break from that?