In this age of rapid technological development, I think we can all be forgiven for not being able to predict the future very well. Back in 1994 nobody would have thought we would all be carrying around smartphones and have access to pretty much the entire catalog of human knowledge with the touch of a button; well at least nobody I knew.
As I think more about this project of writing to my descendants it becomes more and more exciting. I can imagine my relatives decades from now simply loading my file and having a hologram of me read this very post. The only limitation would be how much content I’m able to provide which is to say the amount of posts I can get down. As I expect to live another 40 years I hope to have at least a couple thousand posts.
A good question my descendants may ask is how I came up with this idea. The simple answer is that I like to catalog my own life. I like to put my experiences, pictures, video etc down into computer files. In other words I want to record my own life as much as possible. With today’s smartphones the task has become easier but will probably seem pretty primitive in the future when one could easily record the entire day, everyday.
So why would I want to do this? Well, I guess the answer to that is I have a very intense and deep understanding of how fast life goes, that I could die tomorrow, and that the experience of being alive is simply incredible and I want to leave a permanent record.
Here is a passage from the movie Intouchables that shares the same sort of idea I’m trying to express.
“- Dites-moi Driss, à votre avis, pourquoi les gens s’intéressent à l’art ?
– Ben j’sais pas, c’est un business.
– Non. C’est parce que c’est la seule trace de notre passage sur Terre.”
Je ne suis un artiste donc pour moi, mon seule trace de mon passage sur Terre c’est ce blog! And why did I write the quote in French? Well, my descendants, if you do not understand other languages then the most important advice I can offer you is to learn a few. In the future technology should be able to translate languages rather effortlessly but the words only convey 50-60% of the actual meaning. You’ll have to understand the mentality of the culture and the subtle nuances that are unique to every single language. If you use translation services you just understand the words but the complete meaning will elude you.
In another post I’ll speak more in depth about my thoughts on a possible afterlife. I don’t like to use the word “belief” because I find that particular word has become too contaminated by the overuse of those who do not think deeply, who use what follows after they use that word as the final answer that really cannot be challenged. The true answer should be that none of us knows what is going on, where we are, what we are, what is happening, what will occur when we die. We have simply created stories over the millennial which provide safety and comfort from one of the most terrifying things at all. That is the absence of answers which explain our very existence. The closest that we’ve come to any sort of explanation is Cogito ergo sum. Other than that we are just evolved monkeys floating on a rock in space that shot out of nowhere millions of years ago.
Most of humanity wants to think of ourselves as special, as chosen. The entire universe was created for our benefit and as if that didn’t go far enough, we are created in God’s own image, aka we look like God!
It is hard to get more boastful than that.
That is the only answer strong enough to guard against the infitite and terrifying void of having no answer at all.
Well, I do believe I’ve gotten off my original post topic again. You’ll find I do that a lot in my posts. I like to write but only as long as I can keep the thoughts flowing and writing them down. I do not like going back and organizing paragraphs and thoughts into nice neat packages.
I think that will do for this post.
