It Sounds Good in Theory -- Actually, No, It Doesn't

Although I probably shouldn't be -- we're talking billions of messages -- I'm frequently surprised by the coincidences the Internet throws up. Today's example: well-meaning, but ultimately creepy, communications from beyond the grave. 

Although I just learned of it today, since 2006 there's apparently been a company called Deathswitch which allows the users to schedule email messages to be sent after they die. The system sends you an email message on a sporadic basis, and as long as you reply it knows you're alive. Once you stop responding it figures you're dead, and starts the countdown to sending whatever messages you scheduled to be sent after you were gone.

Good in theory, I suppose, maybe, but then there was the Dear Prudence column in Slate which had a woman writing in looking for permission to stop reading the letters her mother had written as she (the mother) was dying a decade earlier. Mom had apparently written a letter to mark all the expected big events in her daughter's life -- birthdays, graduations, weddings, etc. -- and the woman was tired of having to focus on dead mom during all her big events. 

I can totally get her point, but imagine how much worse it would be if Mom had scheduled a bunch of emails rather than leaving a stack of letters. Out of the blue, this message from a dead person appears in your inbox. Granted, I'm not the most sentimental person in the world, but personally I don't think I'd find an email from some dead someone sweet or comforting or "sensational," to use the term the author uses to describe messages from the grave potentially containing "unexpected declarations of love, confessions of secrets or crimes, or the location of buried cash.

But who wants an "unexpected declaration of love" from some dead person? What good is that? If you love someone, tell them while you're alive so you both have the option to do something about it. "I always loved you, but now I'm dead" seems about as pointless -- if not aggravating -- a message as one could possibly receive. 

And "confessions of secrets or crimes?" Really? What are you supposed to do with a "Dear Son, I just wanted to let you know... I was a Nazi... I embezzled funds from my employer... I killed the neighbor's dog... Etc." message? If you kept your crime a secret while you were alive, why share it with people after you're gone? If you weren't willing to pay the cost of your crime by confessing while you were alive, why make your descendants pay for it by confessing it after you're gone? This isn't sensational, it's stupid (and potentially cruel).

Though not as stupid as the idea that someone's going to set up a message to be delivered after they die disclosing the location where they buried their cash. Yeah, that'll happen.

Regardless, none of this sounds "sensational" to me. Frankly, it sounds horrific. So rest assured world, when I'm gone you won't have to worry about me sending you emails (or letters) from beyond the grave. And if anyone out there is setting up their Deathswitch account, unless you're planning to tell me where you buried the cash, please feel free to leave me off your recipient list. 

If I need to hear from you after you're gone, I'll pull out a Ouija board.