We are immortal - Really

300 Immortal

I know something that my father didn't, and could never have known. He might have begun to suspect it had he just lived a few years longer.
What he never knew is that I am immortal!
I have the honour of belonging to the first generation of immortal human beings, really.
Why me and not my dad?
Well, almost every aspect of my life is now entwined, in varying degrees, with the Internet. I am over thirty, (Actually, I'm over fifty) so for most of my adult life I have been literally pouring myself into the bright highways and the dark recesses of cyberspace. By now there must be thousands of different bits of information about me held on thousands of computers, all over the globe.
I am a writer, so perhaps I pour a little more of myself than most down the virtual tubes of cyberspace, but what if I wasn't?
What makes me different to Mr. Average Internet user?
Not a great deal.
Mr. average user may not 'pour' his life down the tubes but since the mid nineties most people in the western world have been engaged in providing a steady 'drip feed' of data onto the world wide web.
How?
Buying, trading, e-mailing, downloading, uploading, getting caught out by spyware, even simply browsing the web leaves a digital trail across the world, bright enough to allow those with a determined motive, to follow.
There is probably no greater determination, other than that of law enforcement agencies, than that of a curious human being tracing their family tree. For the first time in the history of humankind, it is now possible to seek out information in a lightening fast and structured manner, using pre-determined search parameters, in an all encompassing and universally accessible medium.
If my great, great, great grandson ever wishes to, he will be able to recover unprecedented volumes of personal and professional information about me, about my life or my location at any period of my life. He will be able to see just what I looked like, what I wore to work, and at play.
My generation is the first in history to have access to this kind of technology at consumer level. We don't even have to worry about the eventual degradation of digitally stored data, projects like the 'Wayback Machine' are constantly refreshing the data held on computers all around the world. New methods and mediums of data storage being developed even now will eliminate the problem of data degradation long before our data has begun to fade from cyberspace.
Welcome to the age of the immortals.

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