from wikipedia

I heard a loud sound like a car horn, and turned around to realize I’d been standing in the middle of a parking lot without a clear idea of for how long. After having left the grocery store I remembered hearing the sound of an incoming text, and without thinking I’d stopped to dig my phone out of my purse and respond. Then, out of habit, I checked my email. There I found a couple notifications from facebook, but before I’d finished reading the sound startled me and I realized I was standing in the middle of the road. I scurried out of the way and realized for the first time how strange it is that tech savvy people these days live lives which are physically divided– real life and virtual life. I was cognizant for the first time of the look that must have been on my face, and ever since then I’ve been seeing that look everywhere, like their real-life body has been put on pause while they live their life in another world. I’ve grow a nasty habit of staring at these people and wondering if they know how strange they look.

Ever since watching Lain, one of the most mind-screwy animes ever conceived, I’ve been having these troubling thought experiments about the meaning of online existence. For example: lets say a person lives a profound and influential life in the virtual world but nowhere else. They never leave their home, never meet people in person, but online they accomplish a great many things. This is a though experiment, but certainly not impossible, and becoming more possible all the time. Can that person be said to have lived a meaningful life? I suppose that question is fundamentally unanswerable as the definition of a meaningful life is subjective, but it’s a fun question to ask.

Enter virtual suicide. Sometimes we get obsessed with things and realize far too late how strange and probably psychologically unhealthy they are. The other day I discovered this web-based way to commit virtual suicide, and I’ve been addicted to reading people’s “last words” testimonials. The website is essentially a shamelessly emo way to cancel your twitter or facebook account, completely with totally wrong puns galore, but I found myself being unreasonably interested from a philosophical/psychoanalytical standpoint. Why is this so fascinating to me? Is it because I’ve always wanted to know what my own funeral will be like? The idea that we could live a virtual life is interesting because once the notion of a life existing in two places can be accepted, then life after death becomes possible in a very real way. Uh, yeah, by the way, I have a cold and probably shouldn’t be allowed to post anything in a public way. Now that my head feels even more like a swimming pool I think I’ll go lay down