When the Editors Association of Canada speaker bailed, a blogger, editor, web guy, drummer and dad Derek Miller filled in. He spoke about the line between his online and off-line lives - with an emphasis on how he's handled the issue since developing colon cancer.
Derek says, and truthfully so since I watched/listened to this more than once:
"It's less of a bummer than it sounds, really."
Since I've been writing about the words we use online, how and where and with whom we connect and how what we say lives after us, it's a short trip to get to wondering how we separate the personal from the online US.
Derek talks about how the very act of writing about his illness in his blog took away some of the pressure. There was little wondering who knew about his diagnosis and who didn't. And in this I saw parallels to talking abut a divorce, a birth, a new job, or any announcement we might make and then wonder who we might have missed contacting.
In the talk he wonders how his work will stay archived after his death, the depth and breadth of images he's leaving for his children. He considers whether his words online will be seen by family and friends, and gives voice to my concerns about how what we write about will impact them.
Though some of us may have more reason to think about this in depth, knowing that we'll die sooner than we'd probably like, we'll all die at some unknown point and the topics he raises are not simply for those closer to the end of their lives
This is technically a podcast Derek says, but is not an MP3. What an AAC audio enhanced with images is I don't know what that means but to me it looks like a slide show accompanying Derek's voice as he is doing his talk to the group. In any case: Life, death, and the blog is fascinating.
