The Epsilon Eridani Trail (You Have Died of Space Dysentery)

I don't know what this is. It's a half baked post of an even less thoroughly baked idea, which popped into my head, for some reason, as I was watching Pulp Fiction. I really don't know what I'm doing. But you know what, it doesn't matter, because let me remind you once again, THAT I'M AN INTERNET HUNDREDAIRE NOW!

"There are no final goodbyes on this earth"
-3, Dive

I can't really say goodbye to anyone. This is not a psychological block or some kind of metaphorical statement about conditions specific to my life. None of us really can.

We've reached the point, at least in the Western World anyway, where the only final goodbye is dying.

Until very recently, you very easily fall off the grid without trying. Change your phone number, change your address, move to a new city, and it may be very difficult for anyone from your past to get in touch. And back before the interstate and railroads and clipper ships it was a long time to get anywhere, and if you were to leave for the Oregon Territory or the New World or the Holy Land or from the Tigris-Euphrates Delta to the Cedar Forests of Lebanon to slay the monster Humbaba, you may never be coming back, and let's just hope you were literate so you could send letters or a cuneiform tablet. (And odds are, you probably weren't.) You could still say the kind of goodbye to someone who would potentially live on for many years, and it would be the last thing you ever said to them.

Now I can find someone on facebook or ask the Google Monster. I can Skype with people on the other side of the planet. I can send a text or an email to any of my friends and if they're remotely near civilization, they'll get it. I cannot comprehend actually saying a final goodbye to someone unless they are dying. (Or I guess also if I were dying, but with advances in modern medicine cancelled out by all the miscellaneous radiation I'm absorbing, the expected time of that happening should still be hovering around 2065.) Because I know I'll always have a change to get in touch with them somewhere down the road, even if our physical paths never cross again.

And soon (on a historical scale) we're going to have to start comprehending those big goodbyes again. Because we (and when I say "we" I mean "our great-grandchildren") will be going to space. And in space, everything is really far away. Let's say you're best friend, let's call him Chromicron to give him a future-y sounding name, is packing up his life into a nano-fiber suitcase and taking a new job doing some kind of future job on Mars. He's not coming back for a long time. Because of planetary orbits and the cost of fuel, intrasystem travel won't be cheap or feasible, even with new, much faster forms of propulsion. Light lag between the Earth and Mars is about three minutes, give or take a few minutes for their relative orbital positions. This means with the added communication lag time, instant messaging becomes like texting, texting becomes like email becomes like olde-timey email when we still all used dial-up and it would be reasonable to expect to get your.name@mainstreamemail.com without tacking on numbers at the end that would give Rain Man a run for his money.* (The scary thing is that I really can't even remember a time when everyone had dial-up. Yes, I remember having a dial-up connection in our house growing up, but by the time I understood what dial-up actually was, we already had DSL.)

And what when we leave the solar system? Once we travel fast enough to really start feeling relativity, or, to truly separate ourselves from everything we know, get cryogenically frozen so we don't waste half our lives in transit to Epsilon Eridani. (Revelation Space, anyone? Anyone??? You're really not missing much.) Your friend leaves for another system and you will never see him or her again, unless you follow suit by turning yourself into a popsicle as well and getting shot millions of miles in a little metal tube. (And don't leave me a comment saying "actually being cryogenically frozen is less like being turned into a popsicle and more like being turned into freeze-dried chili-mac," because nobody likes a wise-ass. Actually, do comment, it will make me feel good about myself.)

But right now, we're at a point where the world is small, but not small enough that we want to leave yet, what with all the warmth and life sustaining oxygen we have down here and all the gamma rays and ice chunks they have whizzing around up there. And that's why I'm bad at goodbyes: because I have no idea what they actually are. It's supposed be the last thing you ever say to someone, leave a lasting impression of what they mean to you and hopefully give them something by which to remember you. All I ever say is something lame like "keep rockin in the free world!"  A goodbye used to mean something. And it will mean something again. But for now I can never say goodbye because I'll never really need to.


*This was originally a much more edgy joke about autism. Even I apparently have limits.