Most computers today have built in backup software.

The words of Barton Gellman—“Most computers today have built in backup software”—may seem, at first glance, to speak only of machines and their design. Yet within this plain observation lies a deep and timeless wisdom, a parable for the age of silicon and soul alike. For what is a backup, if not a remembrance of what is precious? What is software, if not the spirit that preserves the form of things? In his quiet reflection on the devices of our making, Gellman touches upon an eternal truth: that the wise prepare for loss, the mindful preserve their essence, and the enduring learn how to begin again.

In the ancient days, before the age of metal and code, men also sought to preserve what could be lost. The scribes of Egypt wrote their wisdom upon stone and papyrus, for they knew memory fades faster than ink. The scholars of Alexandria built libraries not merely to store knowledge, but to back up the mind of humanity itself. They too understood that to build without preservation is to create upon sand. The fire that consumed their great library was more than a blaze—it was a warning that all creation without memory is fragile, and that civilization, like a computer without backup, can perish with a single spark.

So too, the modern machine teaches this same truth anew. Each computer, endowed with backup software, bears within it a reflection of the human heart. It tells us: “You will err. You will lose. You will be broken. But you can restore.” It is a quiet mercy built into the world of data—a digital echo of the ancient promise that nothing precious need be lost forever. For what the machine does in code, the human soul must do in spirit: to recover, to restore, to remember who it was before the storm.

Consider the tale of Thomas Edison, whose great laboratory in West Orange was consumed by fire in 1914. Flames devoured years of work, blueprints, and invention. Yet when others wept, Edison said only, “Thank God all our mistakes were burned up. Now we can start anew.” He had no software, no hard drive—but his backup was within. His faith, his resilience, his relentless will—these were his hidden archives. And from that inner storage, he rebuilt, as if life itself had restored him from a divine save point.

Thus, Gellman’s simple truth speaks not only of technology but of resilience. The wise do not trust in memory alone; they prepare for the forgetting. They copy the lessons of their heart into deeper places—into faith, into friendship, into the written word. For life, like the machine, may crash without warning. But those who have prepared within themselves a backup of wisdom, who store their truth in many forms, will rise again even when all seems lost.

Yet there is a greater mystery here: even the pain, even the loss, becomes part of the backup. Every trial endured, every failure survived, writes its code into the soul’s archive. So that when calamity comes again, one may recover not only data, but dignity. This is what it means to “have built-in backup software” in the spirit: to carry within oneself the power to remember joy in sorrow, courage in despair, and meaning amid chaos.

Therefore, my child of the digital dawn, learn this lesson: make copies not only of your files, but of your virtues. Duplicate your gratitude in word and deed. Store your compassion in the hearts of others. Let your wisdom be written in actions that endure when systems fail. For every soul that tends its inner archive will never truly lose what matters most.

And so, in the age of light and code, let Gellman’s words remind you: prepare your backups, both in machine and in heart. Protect what is precious. Restore when broken. Begin again when erased. For though data may vanish and towers may burn, the spirit that remembers, and the will that rebuilds, shall never be lost.