Living forever sounds like a nice idea. This researcher at MicroSoft is going about it in strange ways. He's collecting thousands of photographs, large amounts of text, and thousands of emails, which he plans to put into a database that can be queried by future family members when his real life is ended. The idea sounds ridiculous. Why spend so much time preserving his life for the future rather than living it in the here and now?

Besides, what if future generations don't like him? Many already think these geeky engineers trying to outsmart the world with their new electronic gizmos have no personality or humanity about them. Whatever of himself he is trying to preserve for the future, I hope it has a warm and human side to it, because, the way it sounds to me, I would bet the mounds of data he is collecting are loaded with piles of narcissistic crap.

Journals, memoirs, and collections of letters have served for years to preserve one's identity for future generations, and this began long before electricity was even discovered. Perhaps this research engineer should have studied English literature rather than engineering. Pepys, Boswell, Rousseau, Amiel, just to name a few, continue to be read and admired to this day by people all over the world. What is it then to make one's life interesting enough for future generations to want to read? (My question for myself today).

My pet theory or explanation for connecting with those in the future has to do with connecting with my inner self, the self I was born with, the self everyone is born with. My secondary self sprung to life as my consciousness--my sense of being an individual--developed. That childlike self still resides in me. It's the one Jesus and other wisdom teachers say we must have to enter the eternal kingdom. It's the self that future generations will understand, because they will have it too. Why not pass some of that understanding of our true identity forward rather than this trite obsession with the temporary megalomania so common among individuals?