death-prep

I stayed up way late last night, knowing that I wouldn't be waking up early in the morning to exercise today because I was going to be cooking all day. So, since I was up last night and early this morning, I started working on death-prep for just in case I die. What this means is having a piece of information in my wallet that anyone can access by fishing it out of my pocket. For the moment, it's basically just a list of names and contact information, printed out on a sheet of paper, folded up, and stuck in my wallet. As I improve this, I'll be printing the information onto a laminated card and maybe duplicating the list as an e-copy on my cell phone (which is never padlocked, anyway). I'm also thinking of adding important information to allow people—preferably not the wrong people—access to things like my Google email archives (full of dirty secrets) and passwords to unlock (and probably cancel) this or that service. I hear there's a paid service available now that will go and cancel things for you. I could use that: I have a couple things I'm subscribed to that I no longer want. I might also look into Incogni, but that's a completely different issue having nothing to do with possible death.

I do realize that one flaw with putting all of this sensitive information in one basket is that bad actors could get access to it should I lose my wallet (phone, etc.) or get kidnapped and have my possessions taken forcibly away. If you know of a workaround to this problem, I'm all ears. Otherwise, I think the probability of the wrong people seeing my information and caring about it is extremely low. The most likely scenarios are (1) I drop dead somewhere, get found by a random person who then calls the police or emergency services, and those personnel find my information and deal with it ethically, or (2) I end up hospitalized—injured, comatose, whatever—and hospital personnel dig through my effects and find the information (as has already happened at least once—viz. last year).

After making my contact list, I sat there and stared pensively at it. It's short, almost depressingly so. Kind of sobering. But that's the life I chose as an introvert: my network of contacts simply isn't that huge, and anyone outside of my immediate circle isn't going to be all that exercised if I die, anyway. It'll be more like an, Oh, that's too bad, followed by a shrug, after which they'll just continue with life. Which, really, is as it should be.

Anyway, more on this as I refine my little system. And I've decided not to do a last will and testament in the US since I'm based here in Korea. Once I move to Suwon (assuming I do so, and assuming it's later this year), I'll see about shipping books, if not my other, non-book possessions (which will get donated somewhere)—to Korea, thus centralizing my presence here instead of being so scattered. There will be other housekeeping tasks as well. 

Stay tuned.