I was thinking about writing about the recent death of someone I met once, a friend of a friend, when I realized that this seems to be a recurring motif on this blog. I've already already written similar posts here and here and I never intended this to turn into John Hanlon's Rollicking Review of Death; if so, I would have named it that.
But there is an interest, not necessarily morbid and certainly not as intense as it was when I was a teenager, in death. Don't know if the source of my interest is something individual or part of my heritage. As I said to a friend today, "What's another word for an Irish family reunion? 'Funeral.'"
It's not far from there to think that after I die, my words, these words, on this blog, will be floating around somewhere. Anything on the internet is there forever and I like the notion that the thoughts of those long gone will still be accessible. Yes, it has been that way for anyone who left any kind of record, but the convenience of the internet means that parts of anyone's conscious will be preserved so that future generations can share it. In his novel Ubik, Philip K. Dick imagines a future in which the deceased are cryogenically frozen, and for a period of time until their brains completely decay, can be communicated with. Seems like a nice premonition of the internet.
So...Greetings to those from the future! Sorry about all the pollution we made and the fact that we ate all the shrimp - they were just too delicious.
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