Just before she left, my nurse and I were discussing our opinions regarding the existence of an afterlife. I don’t buy the concept at all while she was a little more willing to accept the possibility of something waiting for us once we shed this mortal coil. I’ll be honest, the thought of my own death scares me. The thought that one day I simply won’t be around to turn the page in a book, to answer the phone, that people will refer to me in the past tense; I find it all deeply disquieting. But that day will come and probably sooner than I’d like. Let”s not kid ourselves; I’m not bloody likely to be collecting retirement at 65. So while I’m here, I hope that others see me as a basically decent person. And I try to leave some small mark that will remain once I’m gone, even if it’s just this silly blog. I think life is one big messy, badly written novel. And it gives me some pleasure to know that people will read a few of my chapters even after I’m gone.
I like the idea of blogging as being a backup for the soul too (I wrote about it here.
You know though, the whole butterfly in sneezes in Tiawan thing says that something you say (or any of us say, for that matter), will lead to something which leads to something yadda yadda infinity.
The cool (or horrific) thing about the web is that it’s real easy to sneeze, you just don’t know what’s going to get on whom.
I read your entry and went looking for this bit from the Tom Stoppard play “The Real Thing”. It fits here, I think. “[Words] are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little – or make a poem that children will speak for you when you’re dead.”