What’s this all about?
“There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.” — David Eagleman
No, I didn’t screw up and quote the same thing twice – it was completely intentional. The idea that we die for good when the last person speaks our name is old. The Egyptians and the Ancient Jews both had similar concepts – and given that both groups learned traditions from groups older than them, I’ll bet the concept goes even further back.
One could look at it as preservation of ideas when you try and keep someone else’s name alive, or attempts at an immortality of sorts to try and keep your own name alive long after your first death. The former is what this is – a way to preserve my friends, family, and folks that may fall into an odd “influential in some way, but not sure I’d call them a friend.”
The format is… let’s call it experimental, and subject to change. At the moment, I’m going to just record entries via video, and I’ll transcribe and clean up the text so entries are available in both formats. If I decide it’s not working out, I’ll change it.
The other experimental part is friends and family of anyone mentioned are welcome to contact me on social media or email (you’ll notice a complete lack of contact forms on here the moment – you’ll have to hunt me down elsewhere) and give me something that verifies you relationship to to the person I’m telling stories about. Once you do that, you can add to the stories (or come do a video with me, or whatever. We’ll make this up as we go along.
Why The Name?
The name Davis’s Books of the Dead has a couple things behind it – the first being a nod to my old blog site, Midnight Ryder’s Book of Many Things (which hasn’t been online for a while now.) Originally, this project was going to just be a part of that, yet it never quite felt “right”, so I spun it off.
It’s also a bit about the format, too.
Each person is being given a “book” to exist in – for the purposes of the books, they’re assumed to be a completely independent entity. But, reality is some of these stories are going to overlap (particularly as time goes on, and well, folk keep passing on.) Giving each person their own book is a good organizational structure, and gives their stories focus.
Frequently Asked Questions (That No One Has Asked Yet)
Who’s in here?
At the moment, no one – I’m just launching the shell of the site. Eventually that will be updated. I have a list of people in mind.
Will there be print editions?
I highly doubt it – while it says books, the fact that there’s video involved makes a physical book very unlikely
How often do you update it?
Whenever I tell a story. There’s no pressure, no schedules, no anything. Telling stories about friends and family that have passed is an emotional thing, and I don’t really want to burn myself out on it. So I may update it daily, or once ever two years.
What are the rules on putting someone in here?
First, it’s not open to other people’s friends and family – just mine. Second, they must have already passed on. Third, the stories I tell aren’t always the most positive items (because we’re human beings – we’re flawed and do dumb things, or are lazy, or a number of possible attributes) so I may not tell them if they overlap with a living person where it may present someone in a bad way.
And I’m very sure the list of rules will get longer at some point.
How long will you be doing this?
Well, there’s some definite limits: when I’m dead, I won’t tell any new stories. Though, I have considered the idea of a “lawyers trust” or similar where i could preserve some memories before friends pass, to be published after they pass (and after I’ve passed). That’s pretty complicated.
Then there’s my memory: I’m in my 50’s, and of sound body and mind. But, well, stuff like that changes, and can change quickly. I could, in theory, lose access to those memories at any time.
Finally, there’s boredom: who knows, I could get bored with this. People might harass me over it (I can’t imagine why, but this is the Internet).
I suppose there’s a secondary question wrapped in this – how long will I host this? That’s an interesting question: as long as systems like Archive.org exist, even if this site goes down, it still exists on the Internet. There’s a number of other things I can do to make the contents of this last even longer, and I’ll be exploring those – but one of the requirements is that it has to be available in such a way that others can someday read it. Archive.org fills that, but it’s far from the only option.
I’m not one of their friends or family – can I still read these books?
Absolutely. Their memories shouldn’t just be experienced by an exclusive group – if you want to get to know the folks who have passed, I’d love it if you, too, experienced them and help keep their memories alive.