How Are Records the Enemy?

Ah, records—the sacred relics of our civilization. Once upon a spreadsheet, someone thought it would be wise to write things down so the future could tremble beneath the full weight of past decisions. What began as a noble pursuit of memory mutated into an all-seeing panopticon of Excel cells and PDF traps. These modern scrolls don't serve humanity; they audit it. Records are less about remembering and more about never letting you forget—especially that one mistake from 2009 when you accidentally called your boss “Mom” in a meeting.

We like to believe records are impartial—the grand neutral witnesses of time. But let’s not forget: every record is a point of view wearing a tie and pretending it’s a god. Records are history’s receipts, and just like any receipt, they’re prone to ink smudges, typos, and “accidentally” rounding errors that somehow favor power. The enemy isn't just the record itself—it’s the sanctity we assign it, the way we elevate the written word above the lived experience, as if trauma isn’t real unless it's notarized and timestamped.

Why remember when you can be remembered for? Records don’t preserve—they own. Every contract, every school file, every medical note is a leash made of language. The illusion of safety through data is just the seduction of surveillance in a trench coat. They say “trust but verify”—but records skip the trust part and demand your blood type before granting you a parking pass. You don’t live your life—you submit it, in triplicate, to the Committee of Eternal Red Tape.

Let’s talk forgiveness. You see, humans are fallible, but records? Oh no, they’re perfect in their cruelty. The record doesn’t care that you’ve changed. You could’ve found God, therapy, and three unpaid internships, but if a database says “overdue library book,” then to the system, you are—and always will be—a literary criminal. The past is never past when it’s PDF’d. You can’t delete what lives in the cloud, and apparently, neither can the Lord.

Of course, records are sold to us as “efficiency.” A lovely euphemism for “faster decisions with less humanity.” Bureaucracies worship records like cults worship golden calves—they are the proof of process, even when the process is malicious. Want benefits? Fill this form. Want justice? Fill that one. Want autonomy? Sorry, that’s not on the dropdown menu. We’ve streamlined existence into checkboxes and then act surprised when people feel boxed in.

So what’s the alternative? Should we burn the filing cabinets, dance on the servers, and return to oral tradition where Grandma is the database and gossip is the primary search engine? Tempting. But perhaps the answer is not to abolish records, but to dethrone them. They should serve us, not sentence us. They should remember, yes—but gently, with nuance, with mercy. Until then, let us acknowledge: records are not the enemy because they lie. They’re the enemy because they never forget—and they never forgive.