Ernie Smith recently wrote:

In the internet era, there is absolutely zero guarantee that our words will outlive us. While not to be morbid, I have literally said to my wife that this would actually be important to me, to have the knowledge that my thoughts would continue to be online, even after my passing. That’s not a small ask.

I was surprised by the strength of my negative reaction to the implied idea that I would want my writing to be preserved after my death: it was something approaching horror.

I have very fixed ideas about my own death, and this made me realise that these ideas are perhaps more fixed than I realised. In essence: when I’m dead, I am dead. I therefore will no longer give a toss about whether my website is online, what anyone does with my organs, or whether I’m buried or cremated. I will, quite literally, care less than I did at any point during my life. If the people who remain find comfort in some activity or other, then they ought to do it; they ought not to sit around and consider whether it is ‘what I would have wanted’ or not, as I am quite literally unable to care.

Obviously, this kind of thing is intensely personal, and I wouldn’t want to seem like I’m judging others. Each to their own. What surprised me was the strength of my own feeling about my own view of this stuff.

It also made me reflect on how my own position is an imposition in its own way. It shifts the whole burden of decision making onto other people, who may not feel that they are in a position to make those decisions. It withholds any easy answers. Perhaps having clear wishes is the easier option all round.

The image at the top of this post was generated by Midjourney.