a little Joe Black to start things off.....
There are two things I have thought about when it comes to death. Surprisingly, it isn’t “where am I going to spend eternity?” at least… not much. No, the two things have to do with the impact of my life on the people I leave behind; my mother, my friends, my work. I’ve included “my work” as a person because oft times it feels like it has a life all its own.
The first thought revolves around Substitution.
When a person dies, there creates an obvious void. As far as spirituality goes,
one may say their soul & spirits simply returned to sender, but in the
temporal realm, there is a void.
Question: to replace that void, should I
organise a surrogate… a substitute in my stead to a). keep “me” alive and b).
to continue the natural flow of things?
Example: I have two brothers on either side of
the religious divide. One is an intelligent whack job who lives on my planet
[the Theist], the other is an intelligent whack job who is an artist-scientist
[the Atheist]. In the event of my demise, I planned on “setting up” the two
boys so that they will find in each a version of myself worth remembering. They
will argue about Faith, they will talk about changing Theism, they will discuss
art and writing and drama the way how I have with both of them. Each will be a
substitution of/for me. For the truth is, the concept of not being around to see that every one is ok
and thriving is repugnant to me. There I said it.
The second thought revolves around Continuance or
rather, Immortality. More than any period in time, we now have the chance to be
‘truly’ immortal through the longevity of our FACEBOOK accounts [so much for books and historical footnotes]. Some years ago
a friend died – his Faceboys account though, lived on. The odd “We miss you”
and “R.I.P Kino” continues today – especially on birthdays. And the notion of
virtually living forever is not new. A woman, who was dying of Cancer made
videos for her daughter outlining everything including, how to apply makeup.
But this was the age of VHS not FACEBOOK.
Question: How would you feel if, after a friend
died, they returned to Facebook with daily status updates, videos, cool links,
blog posts etc.? In essence, they – the dead – authorised/have contracted
someone to keep them alive. Preprogramed messaged et al.
Example: I plan on sticking around a long time
because there are still many, many things [Celestial & Physical] I have to
accomplish. But what if I bepped out? But before I did, I recorded one set of
videos, placed in trusted care ALL my bad purple prose and relatively good
pieces; set up a string of daily status updates and birthday lists to be
adhered to by the one I authorise… how would my friends and family take it? I
suspect they would send a message to the person “playing me” to stop it, some
may even un-friend me but I would hope that the majority would just shake their
heads, through back a laugh and say “Tracy again.”
I know this may be a lot. And I know that this
all stems from my need to push back death away from all I hold dear for as long
as God allows it [went to say “I can” but… let’s be real], still I often wonder
about these things. And how to prep for it.
Pax
Tracy j H
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