I live on the third floor of a residential low-rise in a flat sub-divided into four discrete apartments. I don't know any of my neighbors. I don't know what they look like. Very rarely we might pass one another coming or going. I wouldn't recognize them passing on the street. I don't know anything about them except their audible departure routines in the morning or when they deviate from it.

When I contemplate my demise scenarios, it's safe to say there would be little impact on them except in the unfortunate circumstance if I bite it in my apartment. If I don't leave a body in my apartment, there would be little to no disruption or disturbance in their lives beyond the bustle of the disposal of my belongings.

They know just as little about me, and flipping the scenario I would experience little disruption or disturbance if any of them were to no longer be among the living. If they died in their apartment, I don't think any of them are so disconnected and isolated like me that people wouldn't come looking for them before olfactory factors became necessary to alert the world of their passing. Whatever the scenario, the bottom line is I wouldn't be very much affected.

There are two people in Taipei that I know and have met with socially in the past . . . let's say five years, albeit rarely. If either of them died, I don't know how the news would even get to me, and it's not a stretch that it just wouldn't. I just wouldn't find out. Exactly the same if I were to die.

I have a nominal facebook presence. Again, no one there would know if I died unless someone plied my computer post-mortem and stumbled across my page and were to tactlessly and tastelessly announce it to a reply chorus of "aw gee, that's too bad" at best. Any announcement to inform my contacts would have to be made on my page, so that's pretty freaky. Speaking from the grave. That's actually a great idea. Write the announcement in my voice. Get creative.

And on the flipside, if any of most of the couple dozen contacts I have were to die, . . . well, I'd probably at least know about it. Some are as active as me on facebook or even less and maybe there would be no one to mention them dying. But my response couldn't be much more than "aw gee, that's too bad". I'm not involved in their lives. I don't make contact with them or try to be more than an abstract, internet presence. Even people I've known from long ago who were much more than "facebook friends", we're not present to each other now. Effectively "aw gee, that's too bad" friends.

Finally, all that's left to contemplate is a few family members. What if Audrey or any of my cousins or either of my brothers committed suicide? There's no reason for me to think any of them would, but none of them thinks I would, either. It's impossible to really know what it would feel like, even going deep into the scenario in meditation, but I'm having trouble imagining myself reacting much differently than how I would expect them to react if I died.

Whatever impact there is, it would be something to experience and then pass. It would pass. Again, there's no involvement in each other's lives. If I died, what difference would there be in their lives except the knowledge that I'm now dead? If any of them died, what difference would there be in my life? Only the expectation that they're out there and available for a possible hypothetical future meeting up? Not good enough. If they care, they should be present. If I care, I should be present. We're not present, so we don't care. Voilá, we have a meeting of the minds.