The Jaded Africano Speaks

This is something I’ve been meaning to post for quite a while.

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I’ve been thinking. How is one remembered after one dies? There is a fundamental change happening here, something we probably don’t realise.

This is how it works now. Most people will be remembered only through memories. These don’t last. They will be soon forgotten, with only tombstones to remind us that these folks ever did walk on this earth. Others are more fortunate. If you have done something worth writing about, or if you’ve written something worth reading, that’s something more concrete. Then you’ll be remembered.

Yet, even then, people in the future won’t really know you. What you were thinking. What you believed in. Most of what we know about the famous personalities of the days gone by, is what others saw them as. Biographies. Memories. Newspaper clippings. How do I know what sort of a person Cleopatra, or Genghis Khan really was?

Now things are changing. They call it Web 2.0. It’s the power for you and for me to publish whatever our hearts desire. And these thoughts, blogs, scraps, pictures can last forever. Even after one dies, his or her contribution to the internet will stay forever. This is what fascinates me. In the future, there’s going to be a treasure-trove of material for people to pore over. To answer the one question everyone will be asking.

What was Shyam Jade really like?

Death, from Sandman

Update: Two of my friends passed away, and their orkut accounts still exist. It’s eerie and weird to visit them now, to say the least.