Before I Die I Want to…a TED Talk

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If you haven’t yet heard of TED Talks, it’s time for you to take a look. TED is a collection of lectures and presentations by some of the most interesting, innovative, quirky and fascinating people you’ll ever hear speak. Covering subjects ranging from economics in an informal economy to the anatomy of the penis, there’s something for everyone – and undoubtedly something you had no idea you needed to know until you heard it on Ted.

A few months ago, I came across a photograph on the internet:

The Before I Die wall in New Orleans

I filed it away for future pondering- and a possible blog post – but kind of forgot about it. Until today. That’s when I saw this Ted talk by Candy Chang, the creator of the Before I Die project.

I found this talk to be profound for a number of reasons. First, Candy Chang is a very open and sincere speaker who talks of the places and people she loves with full-on honesty. Chang talks about how easy it is to get caught up in the day-to-day and miss out on the bigger picture – of course she said it with much more impact than that. But what she said is true for all of us.

The thing that struck me, personally, was how similar Chang’s project is to the act of blogging. She encourages people to share their deepest wish, about what they’d like to do before they die, in a public arena, creating community connection and conversation among people who may have never met before and might never meet again. Imagine how it would feel to participate in something like this, sharing your most personal wishes – whether serious or comical – in such a visible and open way.

That’s what blogging is like, and that’s why, when it’s good, it works. For people like me and my many friends who blog, our posts are more than just some words and pictures. They are parts of us that we are sending out into the great, vast internet community, hoping to hear someone’s voice speak back to us through a comment, a share, or a Facebook like.

(This is NOT a plea for any of those things – I promise!)

By creating a place for her community – and ultimately many other communities- to congregate and take part in a living art project, Chang has given thousands of people a voice – even if it’s only one sentence. And by making the sentence one that can bring tears to our eyes or laughter to our souls, Chang has opened up the possibility that anyone and everyone who passes by one of her many walls can send a little bit of themselves into the universe, hoping someone else will read what they write and connect, even for a moment, to what they are saying.

The internet can link us and bring people together, just as Candy Chang’s walls of Before I Die sentences do. One only need look and, somewhere, there is someone who will get you and who you will understand – and that’s community. For Chang to have created art that creates community – well, that’s brilliant.