The Internet and Ghosts: Navel gazing in the wake of a passing.
Hans is dead... And Dick Cheney...isn't.
It was the first thing I read this morning, then I let the chickens out and looked at my list of stuff to do, checked to see if I'd got paid for last month's work (nope), and for a moment, I envied Hans.
We weren't close, we only saw each other at conventions, and the meetings leading up to them, but he was a fun person to be around and a fellow who loved his conventions as much as I do. We shared many a chuckle and drinks.
I'm at that age when news like this will be more and more common, and its only a matter of time until its another being I shared my 'inside voice' with, someone with plenty of dirt on me... I suppose that might be the consolation I can take from it. If I truly have my Mother's genes I'm likely looking at another 50 years on this rock.
Confession time (speaking of dirt), I play Farmville. It seems retarded when I spend an hour or so a day doing the real thing. Maybe its because I feel like I'm actually accomplishing something when I'm online. It's easy, I can give gifts to friends, and people I don't know for that matter, assuaging some of my personal guilt about not being able to do enough for the people who deserve it. Hans was one of my 'neighbors'. He'd planted a field of poinsettias, judging from how far grown they were, probably right before his heart decided to take a nap.
If any of us could drop dead at any random time while awake, what WOULD be the last thing we'd likely be doing? Fussing around with some online time vampire? Bitching about politics? Putting our head in the fridge to see if something worth eating has materialized? After visiting his farm I thought about deleting mine, and forcing myself to use that time building websites for worthy causes. Not that I don't do a little bit of that anyway, but I'll give myself half an hour of easy contentment every day, damnit. Even being charitable is selfish. Really. Why do we help people? It makes us feel good. "It's the right thing to do" Sure, but there are an infinite number of alternatives that would be "the right thing to do" that we aren't doing. Giving all but a liveable amount of our money and goods to starving people, building houses for the homeless, making sure everyone, even those we don't know, have access to health care, learning the trade ourselves and providing it to them.
Do I want to shuffle off being known merely as someone's passively attentive Farmville neighbor? I don't associate Hans with farmville by any means, though that's where I had the most interaction with him, and it bothered me that those poinsettias are going to whither. Then it bothered me that it bothered me.
The internet and social networks have provided us with something I hadn't anticipated: Ghosts. From people we barely knew, and those that are close to us. Everyone. Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, myspace, Livejournal, roar on with abandoned accounts of the living and dead. Millions of ghosts. They'll eventually drop off as servers are replaced, accessible evidence of our lives nestled for all to find. Before we just had tax records, genealogy, maybe have a road named after us. Online our tracks are more vibrant, but lost among millions of others. This web that ties us together and keeps our ghosts visible, a force people are scrambling to control, it is mighty: Alliances are won and shattered, lives turned over, enterprises built and demolished, families uniting and dividing...and yet no one is there! Maybe an IT manager blocking out the sound of cooling fans somewhere in a Texas basement. An intangible force built on a fragile infrastructure.
This is where I make my money, pay my rent, from people who don't know how to or have the time to make their mark on this intangible force. I'm somewhat prepared should it's foundation prove its fragility. I'm good with animals and I know a smattering about farming, construction, and transportation. I am not lost without infrastructure, I make an effort to escape it on summer weekends. But my bread and butter is, for the most part, intangible.
The intangible isn't pointless. Memories of your family, how much money is in your account, everything that ended up on Wikileaks... Facebook may not be not the best use of time, but pointless? No. Though I'll be thinking a lot more about what I'd want my carcass slumped over when it's found.
It was the first thing I read this morning, then I let the chickens out and looked at my list of stuff to do, checked to see if I'd got paid for last month's work (nope), and for a moment, I envied Hans.
We weren't close, we only saw each other at conventions, and the meetings leading up to them, but he was a fun person to be around and a fellow who loved his conventions as much as I do. We shared many a chuckle and drinks.
I'm at that age when news like this will be more and more common, and its only a matter of time until its another being I shared my 'inside voice' with, someone with plenty of dirt on me... I suppose that might be the consolation I can take from it. If I truly have my Mother's genes I'm likely looking at another 50 years on this rock.
Confession time (speaking of dirt), I play Farmville. It seems retarded when I spend an hour or so a day doing the real thing. Maybe its because I feel like I'm actually accomplishing something when I'm online. It's easy, I can give gifts to friends, and people I don't know for that matter, assuaging some of my personal guilt about not being able to do enough for the people who deserve it. Hans was one of my 'neighbors'. He'd planted a field of poinsettias, judging from how far grown they were, probably right before his heart decided to take a nap.
If any of us could drop dead at any random time while awake, what WOULD be the last thing we'd likely be doing? Fussing around with some online time vampire? Bitching about politics? Putting our head in the fridge to see if something worth eating has materialized? After visiting his farm I thought about deleting mine, and forcing myself to use that time building websites for worthy causes. Not that I don't do a little bit of that anyway, but I'll give myself half an hour of easy contentment every day, damnit. Even being charitable is selfish. Really. Why do we help people? It makes us feel good. "It's the right thing to do" Sure, but there are an infinite number of alternatives that would be "the right thing to do" that we aren't doing. Giving all but a liveable amount of our money and goods to starving people, building houses for the homeless, making sure everyone, even those we don't know, have access to health care, learning the trade ourselves and providing it to them.
Do I want to shuffle off being known merely as someone's passively attentive Farmville neighbor? I don't associate Hans with farmville by any means, though that's where I had the most interaction with him, and it bothered me that those poinsettias are going to whither. Then it bothered me that it bothered me.
The internet and social networks have provided us with something I hadn't anticipated: Ghosts. From people we barely knew, and those that are close to us. Everyone. Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, myspace, Livejournal, roar on with abandoned accounts of the living and dead. Millions of ghosts. They'll eventually drop off as servers are replaced, accessible evidence of our lives nestled for all to find. Before we just had tax records, genealogy, maybe have a road named after us. Online our tracks are more vibrant, but lost among millions of others. This web that ties us together and keeps our ghosts visible, a force people are scrambling to control, it is mighty: Alliances are won and shattered, lives turned over, enterprises built and demolished, families uniting and dividing...and yet no one is there! Maybe an IT manager blocking out the sound of cooling fans somewhere in a Texas basement. An intangible force built on a fragile infrastructure.
This is where I make my money, pay my rent, from people who don't know how to or have the time to make their mark on this intangible force. I'm somewhat prepared should it's foundation prove its fragility. I'm good with animals and I know a smattering about farming, construction, and transportation. I am not lost without infrastructure, I make an effort to escape it on summer weekends. But my bread and butter is, for the most part, intangible.
The intangible isn't pointless. Memories of your family, how much money is in your account, everything that ended up on Wikileaks... Facebook may not be not the best use of time, but pointless? No. Though I'll be thinking a lot more about what I'd want my carcass slumped over when it's found.