The Digital Forever

Introduction

This is an excavation from Seven Days In from May 2016, a year in which we lost a lot of artists. The blog lives here:

The concept reminds me of this early Vocal post that I published.

I've corrected the errors and added a few bits but this is essentially the 2016 article.

The Digital Forever

Yesterday evening I went out, It was cold and foggy and again I was feeling alone and cut off (in a good way) and was taking photographs and posting some black and white versions to Instagram because it felt as though it should have been in black and white. Those images were to try and convey what I was feeling and then thought maybe a video would to so I posted this which included some commentary, and then thought that as long as the cloud, the web and stuff exists, then this makes me immortal. Most of us have some kind of online presence now and it means that even when people pass, unless someone removes their stuff they will be around for us still, in writing, comments, pictures and videos these days.

This year we have lost David Bowie, Lemmy, Prince, and Alan Rickman though Keith Richards and Bob Dylan still endure. But we still have them in their music and film legacy which is often instantly available thanks to the Digital Forever that the networks that spread the globe have given us.

You can go online and listen, watch and read stuff from people still with us and those who have passed YouTube channels will be around for a long time after I have gone.

They are not dead, they are still with us in a myriad of forms and that is just amazing. I am not going to get into anything spiritual or religious here, but I am happy this blog, my Instagram and and my Vocal stories.

Anyway sorry if this sounds dark, it's not meant to be, it's meant to be hopeful, which is why I soundtracked it with Bowie's Heroes possibly my favourite Bowie single, well it is today.

Have a brilliant day.

Conclusion

One of the problems with life is that there is only one way out, and none of us want it. Since 2016 we have lost more and more of the artists we treat as contemporary, and we have also lost friends and others that we know. As we age this gets more common.

The thing is almost everything these days can be captured digitally, like the Bowie video that I started this story with. They are always with us, and one of the reasons I write, publish books and run a YouTube channel is that I want (and expect) to be as close to immortal as possible.

My books are here:

And my video channel where you get to see me talk and sing is here:

The thing is there is so much in life to experience and I feel there is more every day. Although digital technology has shrunk the world in many ways, it has also increased the things we can experience.

I have lists that are growing longer and will probably be never finished (by me) but that is not a bad thing. I never want to run out of things that I want to do, places I want to go, and people that I would love to see.

I will never be bored, and will always have something to do.

Thank you for reading this old story of mine, and I hope it has given you hope and not upset you.