This morning finds me in a warehouse. And if any of you reading have ever been in a warehouse, you know it's not a particularly pleasant place to be in the wee hours of a chilly morning. Especially when less than an hour ago you were bundled up by an impressively fluffy comforter in the middle of your incredibly large bed with an indescribably beautiful woman pushing her impeccable rear into your irritated back, whilst your insufferable dog ignited your icy heart with inconceivable cuteness. She thinks she's people. But that is exactly where I find myself this morning, alone, cold, and comforted only by a keyboard. Crazy how fast an hour can change your life.
And yet, this clock just keeps ticking. It doesn't stop. The only sound in the whole place is the clacking of my black keys (Thanks MacBook Pro!) and the march of time through the barren air. It's almost sad in it's absolute certainty. I can literally hear my life growing older, escaping second by second into nothingness.
I often think about our mortality, and how it is ever changing. Not that we're constantly dying, I understand that (as the macabre previous paragraph bleakly indicates) but rather I think of it in this digital age. The Facebook and Twitter age.
We all know, or at least I hope we know, that once something is 'On-Line' it never really leaves. All of those drunken pictures of you from college? You might 'un-tag' yourself, but they still exist. So an interesting phenomenon has an almost 100% chance of happening. Our children are going to have unprecedented access to our daily lives. One day, my future kids might stumble accross this very blog post, and read the words of their father on this particular date in history.
"But Mike," I hear you saying in your annoying voice, "we can already do that with Journals and Diaries from yesteryear." Yes, and essentially, a 'Blog' is exactly the same thing. But what about Facebook? Or Twitter? How many times a day do we post just stupid, asinine things to those public platforms without a second thought? Will your children be able to look back one day using 'Facebook Historian' or whatever service will do it, and be able to pull up a day-by-day account of your life? After I'm gone, are my children or grandchildren going to read my views of Homosexual marriage and what YouTube video I found humorous? The answer, I truly believe, is yes. And it will be AMAZING.
The question of 'Would I be friends with my parents' won't be a mystery. They will be able to read everything, see every picture, view every 'like' and have incredibly detailed access to your life, right now. These very seconds, although ticking away and fleeting as they may be, are being chronicled by technology as an unmercilessly accurate painting of we as people in the time we live. I find that terrifying and extraordinary poetic. Not only is Social Media bringing us together as a people, giving every person a voice (to say as much stupid shish as they like) but it will be bringing us closer to the future, in a way. The picture we're painting for future generations won't be viewed through a rose-tinted lens, but by a cold-reality... lens. If you were freaking out about being pregnant and how the baby destroyed your life, that child could one day read that in your own words.
So in a way, we are are immortal. Once we die, there will be a record that we really lived. And that's amazing. I'm reminded of a friend who recently passed. We were friends, not great friends, but we didn't oppose hanging out. He lost his life tragically a year ago in an unfortunate accident. Very sudden, no warning. And the grief was phenomenal, from all areas of his personal life. But it was on Social Media. His Facebook page became saturated with heartfelt messages, written to him, as if he could still read them. This continued for many months. People would 'tag' him in long lost pictures, asking him to 'remember that time..?' and I thought... how beautiful. Just a few days ago was his birthday, and the birthday wishes he received were just as lively, and fun as if he were still walking around, cracking wise.
Because his profile is password protected, he can't be deleted (save for Facebook themselves I suppose) and therefore, he lives on. Frozen in time, with some dumb snapshot as his profile picture, reminding us all who he was, and forever will be. And that's how he'll stay. How we'll all stay one day, our last days recorded almost to the moment of our demise. Surely there is beauty in that.
In the time it has taken to smash out the above, the clock on the wall never faltered. It never rested or took a break from it's duties. Nor should we. It is our duty, in this digital age, to leave behind a footprint we can be proud of. If we were to suddenly cease, to leave behind the warmth and goodwill as to warrant birthday wishes a year from now. To make our children and children's children proud, and fill them with wonder over who we were, when we were. So I challenge you, imaginary reader, to live your life like that. Knowing that, like time, life will never slow down, never give you a break, and we only have one shot at this. We better get it right.
No pressure.
Oi! What's with the malaprop-plug?! That's not even a damn word!
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