Virtual Thought

A while back, Boing Boing had a little write-up about a 92-year-old blogger named Donald Crowdis. Mr. Crowdis’ blog is thoughtful and funny, but, really, after reading that write-up and every post up to that date I immediately forgot about his blog. I meant to track it, but this was just before I started using an RSS reader so I had a tendency to “lose” interesting blogs.

Boing Boing wrote about Mr. Crowdis again today because of his post, It Bothers Me That I Have To Go.

Seriously, I read his post and almost cried at work. I had to go do other things for a while, walk around, stretch my legs.

...[M]y writing bothers me, because I have to be careful to be legible, even to myself. I am quite sure I have had a stroke (the final medical diagnosis is still pending)... I know I must go fairly soon. I just don’t like the idea.
I’ve floated on the remark “Been there, done that” for some time now, but the notion that the moment is approaching when I can no longer say this bothers me. The truth is, I don’t want to go.
There are many reasons. For too long I have behaved as if I could postpone going indefinitely, and thus have so many things that I must do first. I don’t want my successors to find out how much I could have done that isn’t done, not by a long shot. There are numerous notes and letters I must write. There are places I’ve wanted to travel, but never had the chance. Actually, each of you can, if you think yourself into my age, fill out the list. At least you can try to understand why I say that I hate to go.

For some reason, reading this post, looking at his smiling picture, thinking about him writing this post at 9:30 at night while his wife is in a nursing home, while he sits in front of his computer having recently suffered a stroke and unable to write… I felt crushed by this overwhelming sadness: imagining him, plaintive, explaining to his anonymous readers that the idea of his death scares him… it’s too much!

After work, I came home and was puttering around and, for whatever reason, decided to re-read his post. This time, though, I just out and out wept. I wish I could give this guy a hug. I really wish he didn’t have to die, or, at least, not be scared. It makes me want to run around screaming… I dunno.

BTW: Beware the comments on his post. There are some good ones, but mostly the chaffe splits fairly evenly into bland new agey-ness, Christian Godliness, fuck-it-all and listen-to-ME-being-scared-of-death… nothing that would comfort me were I in his position.

Robert Anton Wilson passed away today. Good writeup over at Boing Boing.

I can’t quite believe that he’s gone. I can’t quite read the last blog entry without getting too much of a sense of time passing by.

Fnord!

So, according to the Mayans, the world will end on December 21, 2012. It is the end of the Mayan Long Count, set to end on a winter solstice some 2300 years earlier (impressive bit of math and astronomy there if you ask me).

So you can understand why I’m disturbed to read that huge solar storms could zap Earth as the solar cycle reaches its peak in 2012. Whaddya mean it will shut down the power grids and fry our delicate computers? Crap!