When it comes to leaving a legacy, it's hard to dissociate this concept with the finality of death. In every way, death is the motivating factor that encourages people in a fear-based manner to play a life that leaves behind a legacy that is here to stay. This eventually implies a struggle of survival today, to leave a mark for tomorrow, the need to belong even after you have passed on. How often do we say, that he/ she lives through his kids or his work, an artist through their art, a writer with their book?
But not everyone can have a talent, skill or means to create a revolutionary identity for themselves. Not everyone can be a Michael Jackson, but does that mean that a normal person doesn’t have the right to a legacy?
Digital life is a concept of a dimension within the world, that has been formed & expressed in this world itself, and yet it reaps it’s fruits by the means of creating a legacy, an alternate digital life for the deceased. It drives its inspiration from the need humans feel to belong, and the right each one feels to be relevant. The need to sustain and survive means more than just flesh and blood, it means in the true essence of ‘who we are’, the core fiber within uscraving relevance. Why do we shy from creating a digital life for ourselves, when we don’t hesitate to read a book that carries the legacy of the writer . Just like how art carries the legacy of the artist, why can’t your digital life carry the legacy of you?
The concept of a digital life that captures the essence of a person post their demise. It enables them to leave wisdom, love, and remembrance in the cabinets of the digital world, only to be explored as and when they deemed necessary for their family and loved ones. But the need to save a message for someone, and try to capture to the complexity of the emotion you may wish to express when you aren’t around will only trigger and encourage fonder existing relationships. The kind that will be forged in steel. The idea of creating a digital world for ourselves storing data, information on that platform will also enlighten relationships in the real-world.
When asked to think about death one half of the population would look at it from a fear-based lens, while the other half would like to ponder in abject denial of the consequences of it, because it hurts too much.
With the digital world looming on us, what would it mean to explore the grimness of death and synergies it with the beauty of it, with revering what’s left, knowing that digital life will continue, in its own way, what couldn’t go on?