There are some times in the past, present, or even future when you find yourself looking back on memories from a long time ago, yearning to bring it back again, to continue it, or anything but forget about it and move on. I just had that experience recently so I want to spare some thoughts about it.

Let me start with the fact that I was a manga translator in the past. I began the job - not really a job since it was out of interest and hobby, I did not get paid for anything - about six years ago, when I was in secondary school. It lasted for more than four years, I decided to stop two years ago, you know, every party has to end eventually. For two years, the idea of restarting it never crossed my mind as I actually thought I had grown out of it already.

Recently, I came across some of those projects which somehow were still in my computer. As many people may feel in such circumstance, I was very nostalgic. To see how many pages and chapters I had translated and edited, I started to feel bad that I had put an end to it two years ago. At that moment, I really wanted to start over, to continue what I had left behind in the past. I prepared myself, with all enthusiams, and even my computer to begin translating once again.

However, if anything could go according to plan, it would not be called "life". If you want to translate manga, the most important thing you have to have is the raw, unedited manga, which is in Japanese. Trust me, finding anything related to Japanese on the internet is truly nightmare. For your information, Japanese highly restrict the matter of copyright, therefore manga, anime, J-pop, movies, and the like can barely survive on the internet. Back to where we were, yeah, raw manga. I spent all night (not really all night, just a couple of hours, or even less) turning Google upside down only to find all my resources from years ago had either disappeared or put down. To be frank, I could not find my way back to two years ago anymore.

In another case, say, I remembered an old movie I had watched during my childhood, about over ten years ago for example. Things like that happen to me very often actually. When the idea crossed my mind, I immediately looked everywhere on the internet to find that movie. Unfortunately, sometimes I could not find it. Some other I could find it, but it was not in my language, and I could not stand watching anything without understanding so it was not a bit different from not finding it. There were also times I found it, in my language also, and I was overjoyed at that moment. Yet the joy did not last long after the first scenes were played. The movie was still the same as it was over ten years ago, it may sound a bit ridiculous but that was the problem. Technology has evolved over the decade, and I have grown to get so used to HD quality. It still irritated me when watching a poor quality movie which barely reached 360p, no matter how I had yearned to relive the memories and feelings back then.

Time flows, things change, people change. And change is not a bad thing, especially when it is a change toward something bigger and better. When you keep on clinging to the past, eventually you will find yourself have not moved forward even the least bit, yet cannot bring back the past either, which means you are standing still. In the middle of the flow of things, if you try to move against the current, you are actually standing still, and if you stand still, you are actually left behind. In such situation, the best way is letting go of whatever holding you, and move on ahead. Of course it is a wonderful nostalgic feeling to look back on the past sometimes, it shows that you are a person full of affection and gratitude, which is a good thing. However, like all those photos we keep in frames and albums, looking at them smiling is enough.

I started a hobby, I broke a hobby. Now, I am looking for a new hobby. As you can see, I am writing blogs, I hope this will become a long-term hobby of mine from now on. Not just that, there are still many more things I want to try, but since I have not started, I am not going to talk about it for the time being. Translating manga is and will always be one experience of my childhood and might someday be of use for me. However, I will not restart it, at least not as a hobby, I will do it if I get an actually job. Honestly, I feel happy with letting go, at first it seems hard to accept, but after a while I will get over it. This is something I have to get used to.