I had a lovely birthday. In-laws took us out to a very nice steak dinner the day before. The day of, Reed, Locke, and I had Italian Hot Beef and wandered the Field Museum before heading home on a flight that departed 15 minutes before a big storm, and had to fly and extra hour to go south around the thunder heads. The day after, we rode bikes with kiddos from Dublin to San Ramon, had fabulous ice cream and played in a joyful park before riding back home. 12 miles at 4 years old feels big to me. In the early evening, some friends and I gathered to talk about the digital and death overlap. I’ll tell you more about that in a moment. The day after that, I rode a metric century with some friends, talking about relationships, death, time, and the economics of attention.
My birthday about digital estate planning ended up being a small but very tight group of people. I was overjoyed to have this conversation with them. We talked a bit about our own attitudes on death, and what we had and hadn’t done to be kind to those around us when we die.
I view death as a community act. It is the final step of ceasing to be an individual, and all that remains is the collective experience of you.
This is complicated by technology lending itself so thoroughly to the hyper-individualization that we as Americans experience. Our entire tech stack feeds into that. As a security professional, I abhor the sharing of an account, and yet it comes so naturally to us to do. You should be able to see what I see. I should be able to share what I have and what I know with you.
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