I've been thinking about death a lot lately; not in a morbid sense but from a realist's perspective. As my worldview has changed, I have realized that this really is my one and only shot at whatever it is I want to do here. With that came the weightloss, the focus on self-improvement etc. But now, recently, I realized that death is really only a chance occurrence away and I should both accept it, and plan for it. This includes deciding how the hell I want to plan for it. Some ideas I've come up with:
- Create a repository for all of my usernames/passwords so people can use my things after I'm gone and also so I can be posthumously honest with everyone about who I really am/was.
- Create a time capsule of some sort and after much intense thought and deliberation of what to put in there, store it somewhere it will last an amount of time that I decide on
- Create a script somewhere or register with some service to send a message in the event of my death.
In addition to all of these, I realistically need to write a living will, simply because having one helps direct the law in a way you want as to how to deal with your passing. I've given a lot of thought to all of these, but one nagging thought I have is that really, no one will care to look through everything I own (except to clean it out/sell it), the intended recipients of the time capsule may never see it or it may send a message that I later decide isn't what I wanted to say (esprit d'escalier anyone?). And the same applies to the message but in addition, I would need to find a service that I can trust (hopefully free/cheap) to send the message for me. As it is, I don't have many readers (that I know of; no one comments on my posts) and while I know that many people consider me an important part of their lives, I really don't think that I have anything novel or interesting to say after I'm dead; if it was really that interesting, I'm the kind of person to share it as soon as I think of it instead of hoarding it. With that said, while I'm thinking about it here's basically the things I'd want people to read if I were to die suddenly. Keep in mind, this is all off the cuff so I hope that one of the ideas above would end up more powerful or at least more interesting. Dear everyone, Hello and goodbye. If you're reading this, I'm both dead and I never got around to making a more permanent statement other than a blog post. But that's okay; and it's okay that I'm gone too. Throughout all of my experience, I've approached life as a puzzle and I've come up with some interesting viewpoints as a result; one is that life in all its fragility and wonder is the answer to the question of reversing entropy but, at the same time, it's entropy itself. Life is wonderful because only life itself can appreciate the wonder. The fact that the universe doesn't care about life in the least shouldn't make you sad; it should make you happy because it means that every action another living being has made to make your life better means they have gone against the natural order of things just for you; this is how I tried to live my life and is what I hope the world learns. We have made amazing strides but we are fighting an internal battle. So help your fellow life-creatures in their battle, because it shows that you do not accept the status quo of an uncaring universe. I don't know when I'll go, but when I do I know that whatever I end up leaving as a testament to my own existence will only be appreciated by the living, and only for a short time, if ever at all. And this is the way it should be; I am but a living creature and after I'm dead I will have nothing left to offer the living. But I have learned how to live my life as contentedly as possible, and I am glad for that. I also hope that before I die, I can learn even greater, more monumental things, and then I can teach those things to my fellow humans. Because that's what I've chosen to do. With love to you all, Tyler Hawkins Update 2020/09/9: I have reviewed this post and have made no changes.