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Gone.

David Nunez
David Nunez
1 min read

I have this fantasy.

Over the course of a few months I would slowly tie off loose ends, get my affairs in order, and stockpile required supplies. I would cancel all my credit cards, telephone accounts, or any other electronic means for finding me… Except for davidnunez.com, I’d pay the server company upfront for 10 years of service.

Then, one day… maybe early springtime… maybe summer… I would take down the blog and replace it with one, small, centered-on-the-screen word:

gone.

And I would just disappear.

I’d go off in the woods somewhere or live as a drifter, going from city to city to migrate with the weather…

I’d like to be a mad hermit, living off of what I could scrounge… seeing what I was really made of. Being alone with my thoughts… not having any responsibility to anyone else.

Oh sure, friends and family would be concerned… I imagine I might even be target of a search and rescue…

I’d leave a letter on my desk explaining that I was ok and that maybe I would return… maybe not. I hope that would take the fire out of a police investigation, "We’re sorry, ma’am, but because of this, he’s not technically a missing person" and maybe give my loved ones a sense of understanding.

…probably not.

I would send them random postcards during my visionquest. Also with one word messages…

alive.

well.

cold.

laughing.

free.

I would hope those would be a welcome treat.

And when I got tired. When it was no longer challenging or educational or inspiring, I’d simply come home.

Maybe it would no longer be home; maybe I would have changed and home would have changed and we would be strangers to each other.

Perhaps that’s not an unfortunate consequence.

Perhaps that would be the point of the exercise.

Anyway. That’s my fantasy, sometimes…

Now I need to get ready for work.

David Nunez Twitter

Dir of Technology at the MIT Museum • Writing about emerging tech's impact on your life • Speculative insights on the intersection of humanity and technology 🤖

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