Facebook and Immortality

Recently I re-activated my facebook account after a gap of few months. This was the second time I was doing so. I like this control option of facebook because it lets me disappear from public eye and what I like more is every time I re-activate I hardly notice any change. Some 'friends' and their wall updates just remain the same which almost implies our social behaviour and the image we project to the world by sharing links, views hardly ever changes. This gives me a sense of permanency in the world where everything is so fleeting and transient.

Social media has made it possible to live out our lives in open. We can choose any mask to hide our ugly spots and create an illusion that we are what we project to be. But there are many brazen and bold people who just let their thoughts and ideas flow freely in public domain. I had one such 'friend' on facebook. A New York based blogger shared even little moments of his routine life on facebook. I was a not keen follower of his blog, website nor an active friend on facebook or twitter. I don't think i ever interacted with him except for accepting his friend request. But still through his regular updates he let me have  a glimpse of his life, his thoughts and his amazing essays. It was extremely generous of him. His social media skills were awesome because he had more than 2000 friends and followers on facebook and blogs. He was one of the friends whose updates I subconsciously expected but didnt really look forward to. His presence was so distant that when I re-activated my facebook I really didn't miss his updates for few days, but someone really seemed missing from my facebook.

Two days ago I was 'editing' my friends list and I saw his name. Even when I clicked on his name I was thinking he must have put up link of his new essay on art, literature or an update about his daily walk to bookstore to read New York Times. But what I saw on his profile page numbed me. His wall was full of condolence messages and obituary links. It took me a while to comprehend that he had died. I went back in time to look for his last update and it was indeed about his regular walk for coffee and New York Times. After that there were messages confirming his death. It was so unexpected and I really wanted to reach out to know what had happened and I had no other option but to send a message to his facebook account itself. I really hoped someone had access to his account but now it seems highly unlikely.

It is a new reality that our virtual personas and identities will outlive all of us. There is no way to know about death in advance and we won't even get time to de-activate our accounts or put up a farewell note. These social media accounts and walls will be our tombstone and epitaphs, which we will not be around to see or read.  Ofcourse human memory is short and a person does get erased but still we can leave behind our virtual footprint if we want to.

Now I have a non-existent person on my friends list and it really seems absurd to delete him. His virtual footprints on social media sites and most importantly his thoughts, ideas, writings have remained and they have made him immortal. I admire his family, friends and colleagues efforts to maintain his websites. Everything is there except him.