Saturday, January 17, 2009

Apres moi, ....the blog ! or back-to-the-future.....


I recently came across a blog post on the post-death blogging scenario; ie. what happens to your blog once you are dead. I assume that I have a decent amount of time before my wishes "kick in" so to speak, but this really got me thinking...

Its possible that at some point, just like Yahoo-photos did, Blogger may decide that life is more tolerable elsewhere, , say , together with Wordpress or something, both having being bought by someone else all together. So maybe this blog will have involuntarily have moved, (like its owner), except the screen will say where the blog has moved, but no one will really know where the owner , i.e. me, has gone. All depends on my Karma. While heaven is a distinct possibility, the sheer majority of those folks who told me to "Go to hell" cannot be denied....

Maybe , 80 years from now, say in 2089, researchers in sociology, psychology , linguistics, anthropology, women's studies, etc will be amazed at how friendly everyone was in the "old days". They will marvel at the way folks then actually spoke to each other, directly, as opposed to some complicated method followed by them since 2030, where everything they utter gets archived instantly, and trained Apes sitting at the University of The Antarctic read and draw inferences about you, thousands of miles away, sitting in heated rooms, with computer systems that they hide in their pockets, and special wires running to their left brains.

They will marvel at the stupidity of bloggers in a city actually getting together for a lunch and braving traffic snarls, crowds, road dividers, and rickshaws in the bargain, when you could have really have a f-mail ("food-email" to those ignorant of recent advances in email)-lunch, where the restaurant emailed you actual food, and you could have world wide menus, and email each other bit food portions called piece-mails ..... , and there would be no concept of going home, because you never went away in the first place.

All those posts that folks wrote about life in the late 20th century and very early parts of the 21st, will be declared "heritage" posts.

Google of course will still be there, but it will now have a separate search engine for Mars called Google Mars. Mars will have been colonized around 2050, and there will be a huge amount of work outsourced to Mars, where BPO companies will enjoy 20 year tax breaks, green colored screens; and green colored folks with horns, working the terminals will have to answer questions from folks, asking if you were talking from Mars or India , and tolerate remarks like "I wish GE would keep offices in Nebraska", " Cant understand this b****Martian accent, ", etc etc;

Blogs will be studied to understand how surgeries and medical care etc were handled and conducted in the "old days". Darlene's blog will be highlighted for special mention due to her comments on the ancient medical care system in the US, which would now be 79 states, some of them linked virtually to the first fifty, since they were so far away in the Middle east. Sylvia and Rain's blogs would be a shining example of how the ice age played havoc with the US northwest before a global warming attack converted the northwest to a tropical climate area. Of course , folks in UK, will be rejoicing at the coronation of Queen Kate Elizabeth Barbara Jane Haseena Benazir, originally hailing from Scotland, and there will once again be an interplanetary debate on whether there should be a Monarchy or no. Interestingly, Mars would vote a resounding Yes!

Folks would visit South Asia after a study of blogs that would indicate prehistoric levels of transport and commerce. Vegetables and other stuff marketed by the roadside, tailors who actually stitched individual clothes as opposed to submiting 35,212 sleeves to a clothes factory ready for attaching. How implements were repaired by mostly self taught folks, which avoided the sort of junk pile up that happened in Sunnyvale in the year 2050, causing lack of sunlight into houses, which in turn led to a rickets epidemic. Folks will express wide spread amazement over history indicating barbers coming home to happily cut the families hair. Scholars in agriculture will rue the day sugarcane disappeared from fields, making available only sugar or cane , but not together, causing untold hardship, known as the Powai Pongal wars......

Doctors and psychologists at the International Institutes of Health with branches and offices in 3,400 countries, including Mars, will undertake research to ascertain the effect of casual conversation and neighborly behavior on angry supermechanized populations across the world. Landmark findings will indicate that peoples right brains have shrunk considerably where as the left were bursting at the seams, barely kept in check by weird hairstyles.

It will be recommended that folks have 120 minutes of some interesting conversation with a neighbor or other person everyday. If disagreements were to lead to fights, those too would be encouraged as some interaction was better than none. For those whose work style demanded sitting in front of alphabets, they would recommend sound blogs, and in the absence of requisite technology, word blogs.

Interaction amongst folks was to be encouraged, Endorphin creation was to be attempted.

The only difference was, you didn't have to type in a blog. You could shout at the screen, sing at the screen, and whisper to the screen, and it would automatically transcribe........

Which is why, I have come to the conclusion that in the event I disappear from the face of the earth, and assuming there is no blogger interface available in heaven or hell or anywhere in between, my blog will remain, doing its rounds, whirling in the ether, as I look on (cant say from where),
at all the fun going on in the blogosphere.... user name and password safe in my hands,




21 comments:

  1. Dear Madam,

    Simply phenomenal. What an imagination !!! I think you missed your profession. You would have done well as George Lucas's script writer.

    Ganesh

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  2. I totally agree with Ganesh. Your imagination is just outstanding. If you give up blogging you could write Science Fiction and give Isaac Asimov a run for his money.

    I wonder if my blog would keep on circulating after I go to whatever heaven or hell is waiting for me. I sincerely hope not.

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  3. That was very funny but possibly right on :)

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  4. Amazing depiction is not the word. Your post took me to wild imagination as to what I would do if and when I kick the bucket. I think I would be a ghost writer doing up my blog. The other world needs to be explored is the message I got after reading your post. Keep writing and wish you good health.

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  5. Your imagination never ceases to amaze me. How on earth do you come up with some of the things you do??? My son is like you also. When he was a child, he would actually take me outside to show me where a spaceship had landed in the yard and left what he imagined to be a huge circle on the ground.
    I am afraid I am not as talented as the two of you when it comes to these things! Loved the post.

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  6. Awww !! Wonder what it would be like. There is another angle that i think of. I think family generations will have a relic of the past...

    You know, there lived your periyappa who used to punch into his keyboard every night and claim that people actually read all what he writes..is a comment that i clearly foresee !!

    What will it do to historians, to newspaperwallahs, teachers, designers et al.

    Perhaps they will have a library of blogs...

    Perhaps....

    But until then, i am going to punch on into my keyboard !!

    Your post makes me think !! Spot on !

    Lovely !

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  7. Brilliant, as usual! In my teens, i was totally bowled over by Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Geroge Orwell's 1984, both futuristic novels of their time. They now seem totally outdated, and your post is the next dimension....BRILLIANT!!!

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  8. I just shake my head and go wow! You are so clever and yes you should leave your blog there because how interesting would it be for everyone down the track. I cannot wait for Queen Kate to be coronated too - push that Charles out of the way!

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  9. Ganesh Thank you. Its a bit confusing when post retirement someone tells me "I think you missed your profession"..... And , by the way, yeh George Lucas kaun hai ? :-)

    Darlene Thank you. And I am sure you need to be writing more and more blogs so folks in the future know all about GWB, the medical care situation, and personal experiences in that field.

    Rain Thank you. It was all those wonderful snow pictures on your blog that immediately came to my mind, when I was writing....

    NSIyerThank You. Now that you mention it, the possibilities of doing GHLOGS (a shortened form of Ghoulish Blogs) are mindboggling...and thank you for the good-health wsihes (that really made me smile:-) ....

    Judy Thank you.This has been a passing thought in my mind, but turned into a fullblown raging post after I saw the blog mentioned in the first line of my post....death seems to affect folks in weird ways, doesnt it ...

    Kavi NSIyer's comment just gave me an idea. Wouldnt it be a great idea to have a Ghost bloggers , GHLOGGERS' lunch ? Just think. We can all fly in directly... and avoid all the traffic :-))

    Sucharita Coming from you, as an English Prof, this comment is really special. Thank you.

    Lilly Thank you. I had so much fun writing this, that I had to actually stop trying to including some other blogs/and making futuristic funny comments on them. But it was the link to "steamedsponge" from your recent blog that triggered the whole thing .....

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  10. Well, well, well, I must say i am SO impressed at such creative stram of consciousness all from a few post death blog questions! I somehow think, whereever you end up, you will not care to watch what happens on any blog anywhere! So, yours will be one of those "heritage" blogs. What a strange concept that our stuff certainly will become slices of life of old. Museum relics, as it were.

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  11. Well, well, well, I must say i am SO impressed at such creative stram of consciousness all from a few post death blog questions! I somehow think, whereever you end up, you will not care to watch what happens on any blog anywhere! So, yours will be one of those "heritage" blogs. What a strange concept that our stuff certainly will become slices of life of old. Museum relics, as it were.

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  12. Very nice thoughts.. Really got me thinking too... I think we should be able to pass on the copyrights of our blog to our heir :-) Something like writing a will. As for me, my password is safe with my husband and I am sure he will update the blog in the event of my death.

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  13. awe...how do you narrate stories in such a wonderful way :):) ! I have always thought about this , what will happen to my blog if i die ... we are leaving so many trails about ourselves, the future archeologists will have a lot of material to infer! I have decided that when i get old/about to die i will ask my kids to write in it and 500 years later my blog becomes famous with so many posts ... so many generations carrying it ... it will become a heritage blog ! he he !

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  14. This is THE heritage post Suranga. Google Mars - yes!
    Google Moon? Maybe.
    June in Oz

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  15. I enjoyed your post today very much. I hadn't really wondered about what would happen to my little blog after I die. My guess it will still be there for a good while. My webpage is, but then I update it every now and then. It was a real every now and then once when I forgot the user and pass and which email address I'd set it up with. Once I'm gone I don't figure it will be around too long before one of your apes clears the space for some new person to use.

    The part about interacting with someone for 120 minutes a day really sort of hit home. Today has been one of those days when my husband and I have had separate tasks and we haven't talked much at all today. And I haven't even answered email today. The only real contact I have is my cat in my lap loving me while I try to type. There is something very wrong with that, too. I'm not paying that much attention to the one thing that wants love from me right now.

    Your post was very enjoyable and thought provoking today.

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  16. I always love to wind down my day with your posts! You have such a fabulous imagination! Ah, isn't it wonderful to have such a fun toy to entertain, connect, go crazy with? What did I do without bloggin??? Thanks for a great post!

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  17. hahahahaha..thoroughly enjoyed this..and too much ROFL took place :P
    i wonder if we can have the option of 'ghost-writing' for our blogs post dying :P

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  18. For the first time i laughed out loud while listening to 'Meri Ma'(TZP).There is only one word to describe almost all of your post- Brilliant !!!

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  19. I thoroughly enjoyed your post. And yes, I agree with Ganesh that you missed your calling ;)
    As I came to the last sentence I nodded in agreement. That is what I have planned for myself too ;)

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  20. Crypticrow I guess that means we write them ourselves na ? just wondering why you changed your name and why you arent posting much these days ?

    Kavita Thank you. I just changed the songs in the playlist, didnt realize the contrast you mention ....:-)

    Shail Thank you. And dont listen to Ganesh :-)

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  21. He he, isn't it great coming back and rereading posts. It is evern better than the first time. And here we are three years later. Yes, I think I agree with you, it is better to just leave them up there after we go and we can keep on keeping on that way.

    By the way I used one of my tips and was able to put the link for this post in the comments so anyone else can click on it. Html links dont work in the comment section. It was fun seeing if it would work.

    By the way, I am not personally on Facebook only my blog is. You can click on my Facebook link on my Homepage to find it. Are you on Pinterest or maybe I am already following you I cannot keep up with it all. And I am totally useless at Twitter, not entirely sure how to use it.

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