A blog post from beyond the grave

Andrew Olmsteadwas a US soldier and blogger who fought in Iraq.

He died last year.

As part of his will he requested that his Last Post be added to his blog after his death.

Have a read of it, whatever you think about the war it is a profoundly moving piece of literature. It's also funny, in a bitter-sweet way.

"If you have it, throw 'Freedom Isn't Free' from the Team America soundtrack in; if you can't laugh at that song, I think you need to lighten up a little. I'm dead, but if you're reading this, you're not, so take a moment to enjoy that happy fact"

"Believe it or not, one of the things I will miss most is not being able to blog any longer. The ability to put my thoughts on (virtual) paper and put them where people can read and respond to them has been marvelous, even if most people who have read my writings haven't agreed with them. If there is any hope for the long term success of democracy, it will be if people agree to listen to and try to understand their political opponents rather than simply seeking to crush them...Blogging put me in touch with an inordinate number of smart people, an exhilarating if humbling experience. When I was young, I was smart, but the older I got, the more I realized just how dumb I was in comparison to truly smart people. But, to my credit, I think, I was at least smart enough to pay attention to the people with real brains and even occasionally learn something from them. It has been joy and a pleasure having the opportunity to do this"

Andrew said that as a blogger he wanted to make sure that he could "have the last word".

Made me think about death in a web 2.0 world.

I wonder if this kind of blogging goodbye from beyond the grave will become more usual as we all live our lives online through blogs and social networks?

Sorry if this sounds like a morose post.

Comments

[David Brain]

The ability to write your own obituary is an odd thing however you look at it.

[Lee]

it strikes me as a mainstream way of using technology to do what great men have always done, using their obits and memoirs to manage their historical reputation (cf., Churchill, Winston) (which, incidentally we'll all have to consider since this blog post will be kept forever somewhere online for posterity, no?)

i recently read an article about services that offer this. i can't recall where i read it, but here is one of the services they mentioned: http://mylastemail.com/

[Andy]

you read lots of stories about parents signing onto their kid's myspace after they die and being overwhelmed by the reams of condolence comments. it's all quite eerie...

http://www.mydeathspace.com/

[Amelia]

Interesting.

Lee, that link that you sent through looks oddly like a corporate hospitality site!

In a way I quite like the idea of being able to say goodbye to people if anything awful ever happened. I am sure that generations past write letters for their loved ones which they left with lawyers.

I suppose that we are increasingly living our lives online, so it sort of follows that our deaths may well be played out online as well.

[This is Common Sense]

I don't think it will ever happen that we all live our lives online through blogs and social networks.

However, for those of us who do live our lives online, even slightly, then what we write is inevitably part of our obituary. That is agreeing with the commenters above, but I can make a stronger point - if you have something to say, say it when you are alive, otherwise there is no point. At this moment Churchill does not care what we thought of him, he is dead. Treat each post as though it may be your last one.