The concept of “Aatma” and the belief of it being free from annihilation are getting a new twist in the internet world. Current human society has an immense presence in the web, which start from e-mail accounts to blogging and personal pages. Online communities are becoming the medium of communication for the new generation where the boundaries are buried by internet. Day to day issues and even advice for many challenges brought by life is discussed in these networking sites. People are no more worried about being open about their feelings and let others knowing their real Identity.
This internet world opened another possibility for the human race, till date existence of the dead was through the work they created and this is true for a smaller percentage of artists and other celebrities. Common man come and goes in the world without leaving any footprint or mark in the society. An old photograph or some singed documents or letters are the only way to know these people. Generations never understood their thought process and the situations they sailed as there won’t be any record of the same. Our understanding about our grand fathers and great grand fathers are very limited and never had a complete understanding of the environment they lived.
Here the internet is bringing a change, presence in the web world is becoming increasingly essential for the human and people connect and share. Sharing include the personal information, major events in life and whatever one felt need to be shared. This process is creating an autobiography for every individual without his complete knowledge and less with the pain of penning down a book. Scattered thoughts and messages in networking sites like facebook, orkut and linkedin etc. can be arranged chronologically to understand a person better and the ups and downs of his life.
We all will move out from this world on a fine day, but internet will keep our presence felt to generations coming as current social network sites are not deleting any record any person. You never know in another 50 or 100 years they will decide to go for a policy where they will safely remove the accounts where age of the person exceed 100 or 150 based on the date of birth provided, but that didn’t exist now and hope will note come into force. If this stands true all human beings having a web presence will continue their virtual life indefinite.
Does this hurt the feeling of close relatives, I don’t know nor able to assess. I think there will be lot of birthday wishes and remembrance messages getting posted on the “message board” of people who passed away. There will be close relatives going to these pages just to have a look and feel strong about the person again and again. It gives kind a communication channel to them even though it is one-way, but still you can scrap your thoughts about the person in the web rather than just thinking about him looking at a photo. Is this a boon or disadvantage I don’t know as I have no firsthand experience.
We are in a world where the existence of a person didn’t end on the day he pass away, his thoughts and presence will exist for longer time even if he is neither a revolutionary nor a celebrity. This will help the coming generations to link their roots and get to know better about their previous generations.
