I read dead journals

[azurelunatic]

An LJ phenomenon that probably wasn't anticipated is how people will die, and then there are their journals, collecting comments, as a grave gathers flowers. dawnmarie's journal attracted me because I saw it in the friends list of a friend, and the name was similar to the name of a friend, so I went and checked it out...

She died, but there is her journal, as much of her inner life as she was willing to let out, still there to read. People loved her. You could tell. People saw her pictures, went to her journal, left comments. I saw a mixture of comments: grieving friends, grieving strangers, people who'd just surfed in and left a salty comment about one of her pictures, not realizing she wouldn't be there to read it...

The thing I hate most about the idea of death is not being there to see what happens next. I always hated having to leave a book unfinished, go away in the middle of a movie. I want to know what people will have to say about the finished work of art that my life will hopefully be; I want to know what they'll say about my writing after I'm dead; I want to know how my beloveds will deal without me. I want to read all the Miles Vorkosigan books there will ever be; I will doubtless find new authors, new universes, to latch onto even into my old age. I want to see the direction the politics will take. I want to see how humans will do in setting up a colony on another planet. I want to live on the Moon for a while.

I want to read the comments that people leave in my journal after I'm dead.

I wonder what will happen with LJ, ultimately. Will dead journals have a freeze put on their comments after a time, to keep them from getting too monsterously huge, if storage space eventually becomes a limiting factor? Will my grandchildren, great-grandchildren, read this journal? If my parents survive me, will they? You can find my journal by running a search on my real name, both first and last, and first, middle, and last. Anyone doing research on me will be able to find my journal, with the right search engine.

Will people want to read my journal after I'm dead?

Comments

[thebratqueen.livejournal.com]

What happened to dawnmarie? I heard about her passing but not how.

[azurelunatic]

It didn't say much in her journal's comments about it, at least, not that I saw. Her website, which is linked from the journal, says something about how it was possibly a seizure.

People die all the time, but somehow it seems different when you can read what they thought while they were alive.

[thebratqueen.livejournal.com]

[nod] Also to have a time capsule of a sorts of what her life was like before the end.

[azurelunatic]

That's the mystique of time capsules and journals. History is condensed and dried. These are immediate...

[tsjafo.livejournal.com]

Over-processed history tells so little, there is so much between the lines. *sigh*

[tsjafo.livejournal.com]

I hope to have gone on long before you, young person. The thought of the annals of the dead set asside for posterity is one that cheers me a bit. It is the little things in a person's life that makes it real to me. I've lost a couple of friends who had live journals, and made friends on the use group whom I've never met physically (and now, never will). People who's presence will echo through cyberspace forever.

Damn, this is a discussion for the tuesday night bottle group. Good thoughts.