Families often begin asking questions about someone's life when time has become scarce.
They gather photographs, look through documents, interview relatives, and try to reconstruct stories that were once familiar to the person who lived them.
Some questions can still be answered.
Others cannot.
I've come to believe there's considerable pleasure in undertaking this work earlier, when the person whose life we're exploring can participate.
They can tell us what we got wrong.
They can disagree with our interpretation.
They can laugh at something we'd forgotten, bring in another relative, or become interested in an entirely new question.
And they can enjoy what we create.
Why an Interactive Personal Website?
A book can tell a wonderful story. A documentary can create an extraordinary experience.
But neither needs to be the only way someone encounters a life.
An interactive personal world can contain written stories, music, photographs, original documents, videos, maps, and reconstructed places.
Visitors can follow their own interests.
A grandchild might explore a reconstructed childhood neighborhood. A sibling might follow the family history. A friend might listen to a song or revisit a shared experience.
New work can be added over time.
The underlying materials should also be preserved in portable formats so that books, films, physical keepsakes, and future forms of storytelling can be created from them.
Who Decides What to Share?
The person whose life we're exploring should be able to decide what remains private and what others may see.
A conversation can contain things that someone is willing to discuss but does not want permanently published.
Those distinctions matter.
I approach personal information with the professional discretion and care developed through years of handling confidential work.
Sharing and preservation decisions should be explicit, and the finished work should distinguish documented facts from artistic interpretation.
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