There’s a line I hear a lot when people get preachy about being online too much or using social media. “When you’re on your deathbed, you will wish you weren’t on your phone so much” or some paraphrase of this is reeled off again and again. Mainly because it’s probably true. I’ve written before about longing for the things you hate when they’ve gone, and it often causes me to pause and think about my blog.

Should I lie on this hypothetical deathbed, hopefully decades from now, what will I wish I had done differently? I won’t wish I spent less time on social media, I met most of the people to interact with there, well maybe I should have shaved a few months to a year off my usage towards the end. I would definitely wish I posted more to my blog though, it doesn’t feel like wasted time regardless of the external results.

Publishing here feels like I am at least trying to leave something behind. I’m not lucky enough to be good enough to write a book, so I guess this is the next best thing. It is my only wish that should I pass on, it stays behind as my one and only legacy, a side from my kids, of course. I’m not a big blogger. I don’t get thousands of ‘hits’ and you could be reading this thinking what on earth does this rubbish need to stay alive for. I’d tend to agree, it’s just something I think about.

I love writing, publishing, and interacting with people about my thoughts and ideas. Many of them are formed, flexed and even broken through online discourse and I value all the time and effort it takes. Writing changes you, it helps form ideas, and I find so much about myself just by typing out my internal monologue. So much so that when the time does come to cross the rainbow bridge I think I would miss it most of all.

These thoughts bring me to thinking about the discoverability of my writing. Not in an SEO way, but the people I care about being able to read the things I think about and the thoughts that are important to me. I want people to be able to flick through the pages of my journals and take something from them. If my son ever thinks “what would dad do” I want him to be able to find out. To search through my blog posts and have me talk to him.

The morbidness of this train of thought is not lost on me. I don’t think others in my position have these desires. But when I am gone, I want to still be around.