who keeps our story when we are gone?

great comments on "re:Post..." on 10/8/09. thanks to all who contribute and offer thought-provoking comments and questions. wanted to add to that discussion and our current stream of storytelling with a thought-provoking post by my friend Gavin Richardson re: a session at barcampnashville that got him thinking. find it here, the post is called "we're all gonna die : so who is your digital executor?" thanks to Gavin for sharing his barcampnashville experience.

it got me to thinking that in this digital age, when all that we share/post/contribute online outlives us, who do we trust with our story after we are gone?

i have a friend that died years ago but still has a facebook page, which myself and other friends still post on from time to time. even though it was unintentional (no one thought to take it down) it has been really therapeutic for us as we remember her light and energy.

i also think about the fact that i desired greatly to record the stories of both sets of my grandparents before they passed away but never took the time to sit down and collect their stories in one place in a way that i could get their perspective on before they passed. missed opportunity.

who do trust with your story (online or otherwise) after you are gone? how are you contributing to that story with your online presence? do you have a plan on how that persists beyond your life here in this plane of existence?

Comments

Jason said…
I am not sure if you have ever heard of this site: http://www.deathswitch.com/

It is designed to email out passwords and other sensitive info to loved ones after you die.

The thing is, however, you can also write letters to people and upon your death, these letters can be emailed out to the intended recipients. You can set timers on when these letters go out to be sent at anytime after your death.

This means that 10 years after you die, you could have an email sent to a loved one (say a child) that continues to tell your story by you even after you have died.

The potential for this thing is off the charts.
whoa....i'll have to check out www.deathswitch.com...discussing this idea with a friend and we ruminated on the idea that we are talking about our virtual identity in a virtual world, that there exists no physical "web" so to speak, it all exists on servers and written in code, in Xs and Os and yet we "survive" in this web regardless of our physical presence in the world...i can remain "alive" through my virtual identity and continue to tell my story (esp. with deathswitch service) beyond my physical existence....thought-provoking.
Jason said…
In light of what you are saying...

There is work being done to figure out the logarithms which individuals' brains run. These are way beyond my understanding, but it is argued that our brains are massive living logarithms and if we could get those figured out, we could "upload" your brain's specific logarithm into a computer and you would continue to live in a virtual (you may not even know it is virtual) world.

Very Matrix.

I really would recommend the book SUM. It is 40 reflections on the afterlife and these themes you are talking about in these threads are also brought up in this book of reflections.

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