FutureMe.org Update

On a website, far, far away, I once wrote about FutureMe.org. Basically, FutureMe is an email gateway where one can write a message to any valid email address, and have it delivered at some future date of the user's choosing, whether it be next week or in five years. If FutureMe is even around in five years is a question I choose to ignore, mainly because their basic premise is so compelling to me that I want them to survive a long, long time. The idea of a successful delayed email delivery may not have flown a few years ago, where most of us were changing their email addresses more frequently than their cars' oil filters, but now with gmail, yahoo mail and other free web-based (non ISP-dependent) email services available, the odds that someone will keep the same email address for more than a few years is reasonably good.

The idea of sending an email on a delayed basis is frought with tingly possibilities. As FutureMe makes clear, once the message is sent, there is no taking it back. As my sister Sue would say (albeit for different reasons), it has a high "cringe factor."

I sent a test message to myself on December 15, for delivery three months later. Sure enough, last week on March 15, I received it. The system works! I would love to send a message to my older daughter, for reception when she was 18 years old. I would say that I hope she's happy and fulfilled and at least somewhat educated. I would also tell her that I hope we're still on speaking terms and that she feels loved. I would tell her that she has no idea how difficult she sometimes made things for me, and for herself, and how I know she didn't understand that the things I was trying to teach her were for her ultimate good. There's a lot more that I would say that I can't go into now, but you get the point. It's a great vehicle for conveying emotions that might otherwise be lost forever.

Apparently, it's also a great vehicle for conveying a bunch of crap. Interesting, and occasionally poignant, crap--but crap nonethless. Have you ever noticed how poor writing and grammar can make the tenderest of thoughts irrelevant? All of that and more are in the public pages of FutureMe.org, where those who so choose, share their future emails. Go there, and prepare to be amused. While you're at it, send me a message to be delivered in six months. I'd appreciate it. A digital divulgence or disclosure would be nice--something juicy!