![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Celebrate my death
Jul. 28th, 2010 08:27 amI've died, and I want you to revere what you remember and know about me. I mean I am still alive, but I've changed a lot over the years. I'll die, but in 20 years I may not be much like who I am today. If I die in 40 or 60 years you may precede me, not know, or not care as the years separate us. If I die in 40 or 60 years I'll just be "some old guy." My death will be expected. It will not be me, not me today.
News flash - some old guy died today. You don't know him, but if you knew him you wouldn't know him 20 or 40 years before he died. He changed a lot.
I was looking at memorials, libraries, and statues dedicated to someone's name. The name plastered on the wall...means nothing to me. Did he like puppies? Was he fat? Did the family have bar-b-ques? Were the liberal or conservative? Did they yield in traffic? Did they eat waffles? I know nothing of the person, and even if I researched I'd just get that information that reads like a resume.
I have a resume, and it says nothing about me that I care about. I want my friends to remember that I slept around, helped sometimes, tried to help but wound out aggravating instead, apologized a lot, joked a lot, yielded in traffic, and sometimes ate waffles soaked in syrup. All of that is going to change. The me of 20 is dead, or greatly changed. I was a person at 20, but I've lived more than 20 years since then. I may live as long as I have lived in total, again.
The thing is, I'm alive now and I'm me now. If you're going to hold me up as someone worthwhile, as someone you love, as someone you emulate, or if you're going to troll and trash anyone who has a positive opinion of me - the time to do that is now. Today. If you're going to mourn my loss, you should not wait until some other event makes it more obvious - such as the death of some old guy in 40 years that we don't know yet. In 40 years I'll have been dead a long time and nobody around you will know whom you are talking about.
I'm going to try and mourn each one of your little deaths today.
News flash - some old guy died today. You don't know him, but if you knew him you wouldn't know him 20 or 40 years before he died. He changed a lot.
I was looking at memorials, libraries, and statues dedicated to someone's name. The name plastered on the wall...means nothing to me. Did he like puppies? Was he fat? Did the family have bar-b-ques? Were the liberal or conservative? Did they yield in traffic? Did they eat waffles? I know nothing of the person, and even if I researched I'd just get that information that reads like a resume.
I have a resume, and it says nothing about me that I care about. I want my friends to remember that I slept around, helped sometimes, tried to help but wound out aggravating instead, apologized a lot, joked a lot, yielded in traffic, and sometimes ate waffles soaked in syrup. All of that is going to change. The me of 20 is dead, or greatly changed. I was a person at 20, but I've lived more than 20 years since then. I may live as long as I have lived in total, again.
The thing is, I'm alive now and I'm me now. If you're going to hold me up as someone worthwhile, as someone you love, as someone you emulate, or if you're going to troll and trash anyone who has a positive opinion of me - the time to do that is now. Today. If you're going to mourn my loss, you should not wait until some other event makes it more obvious - such as the death of some old guy in 40 years that we don't know yet. In 40 years I'll have been dead a long time and nobody around you will know whom you are talking about.
I'm going to try and mourn each one of your little deaths today.
