Plan for when I'm gone

[Daniel-Mietchen]

There are lots of aspects to this (see also Daniel-Mietchen/events#138 and #357 for some recent thoughts on the matter), so perhaps let's focus here on those things that are relevant to open knowledge.

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Here's a report of a journalist describing her experience with configuring her own funeral using a funeral configurator.

Archive URLs:
https://web.archive.org/web/20181125144834/https://ze.tt/wie-es-ist-sein-eigenes-begraebnis-online-zu-planen-tod-wien/
https://web.archive.org/web/20181125143530/https://konfigurator.bestattungwien.at/bestattungsart

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Just saw someone who had a sticker on their car in support of tissue, eye and organ donation, so taking this as a trigger to publicly state that I am fine with that as well. I do have an organ donor pass somewhere, but not at hand.

Another simple decision is to release whatever I wrote in public into the public domain.

For non-public stuff, I'll defer to my family.

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Another suggestion for the funeral: make attendees laugh, e.g. as per this example.

[Daniel-Mietchen]

My friend and colleague Lane Rasberry recently started a similar page on-wiki that also clarifies licensing and has some other details worth thinking about.

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Just came across this Death slam, e.g. with this video about the sense of life and questions.

[Daniel-Mietchen]

I just set up Inactive Account Manager on Google.

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Stimulated by thoughts about #1028 and #83 , I thought about what music would be appropriate for my funeral.

I am listening to classical Iranian sitar music right now, and since that is the kind of music I am enjoying while alive, it would be a good candidate to play on that occasion too. Live music would be appreciated. Other than that, my preference would be for traditional music from around the globe (i.e. where electricity was only involved in the recording, not in the production of the sounds), along with sounds of nature, including from extinct species. The Golden Records (of which I built a replication in middle school when we were asked to create some artwork in honour of the "birthday of our republic" — my teachers did not like my approach to that) have a good selection to get started, and so does the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv (which allowed for my first deep dive into music ethnology, starting with a presentation about the musical culture of the Senoufo).

If there is a speech, it should come after a very inspiring one that paints a broader picture — I just rewatched Charlie Chaplin's "Message For All Of Humanity" — and try to find intersections with my life. I will try to annotate it and some other inspirational speeches (e.g. Severn Suzuki's at RIO 1992) to see what I - now - would express differently.

Some other ingredients I would appreciate:

• My Dear Tomorrow letter will hopefully be available by then
• 3-day workshop, remote participation possible (I could not travel to Cambridge for the Jean-Claude Bradley Memorial Symposium and regret that remote participation was not an option)
  • following the WikiCite model, each day will have a different emphasis
    • Day 1 ("symposium"): monologues to set the stage and for participants to get to know each other
      • there should be some relationship of the monologues to my life or the things I care(d) about (in general, not just science)
    • Day 2 ("workshop"): dialogue to identify paths forward and next steps
      • I am particularly eager for collaborations to be forming based on overlaps between the different relationships expressed in the monologues
    • Day 3 ("doathon"): practical activities to catalyze action along the lines identified on Day 2

It is also becoming clear that such a ticket is not a good place for developing these thoughts, since the edit history here in comments is not transparent. I will thus likely move this to a separate file/ folder or wiki page at some point.

[Daniel-Mietchen]

The above comments on this issue were part of Day 5 of #100daysofideas, as per this tweet and #1441 .

[Daniel-Mietchen]

In the context of the recent passing of two Wikimedians I knew - DGG and Deror Avi - I was wondering whether such occasions could be used to share more open knowledge about what happens when someone dies. Lane's will and testament contains advice on turning his body - or whatever remains - into open knowledge, and I would certainly welcome any attempt to do this for his body or mine, yet I would like to add that I would also like the process of handling the physical remains to be documented in a way that can be openly shared. In fact, if possible, I would like my death to be documented too, and the resulting data, media and other materials to be shared as openly as possible with minimal delay. I am aware that one way (a trivial solution of sorts) to comply with the previous sentence would be to kill me on camera, but I oppose that line of thought.

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Just came across a comment that resonated:

When I die, I want to be an instrument in their band.

I like the attitude of serving something beautiful after life.

The music in question (Krigsgaldr by Heilung) resonates with me as well, yet I would probably prefer other options, e.g. Olena Uutai or Altai Kai.

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Neil de Grasse Tyson has commented quite a bit on the matter, e.g. here:
“I would request that my body in death be buried not cremated, so that the energy content contained within it gets returned to the Earth, so that flora and fauna can dine upon it, just as I have dined upon flora and fauna throughout my lifetime.” - this resonates with me, similar to the quote above.

He explains that a bit more in another video that also has a passage on what he wants on his tombstone - apparently a quote from Horace Mann: "Be ashamed to die until you've scored some victory for humanity."
While I get his point, I would not use such a framing, because I am aware of many circumstances in which people well on the way to "score some victory for humanity" died of an unnatural cause, particularly wars, crime and accidents but also natural disasters, disease - and slavery, in the context of which I presume Mann's quoted statement to have originally arisen.

Perhaps a variation like "Strive not to die until you've scored some victory for humanity." is a more realistic framing to live by.

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Here is an example of such an unnatural cause: #1791 .

In this context, I think encouraging the mourners to support the causes/ organizations/ activities that the mourned had engaged in is a good way to continue along the path to "some victory for humanity".

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Here is an example of someone hinting that their time might come up soon. Not sure how I would handle that, but I have been inspired by several such cases, perhaps most prominently by Randy Pausch's Last Lecture.