These are electrons. They do mean something in the way that all words mean something. But no more than that.
On the Web (this means to an end), we have the opportunity for various guises (and disguises). Speaking for myself: at Slashdot and Ars Technica, a wannabe nerd; on Boing Boing, an interested lurker; an ordinary grazing consumer at the New Yorker and NYTimes sites...
On and on.
Are all or none of these me? Sophistry? Perhaps.
We shall be many things in this medium, some of these will matter to one another. Some of these things will elicit affection; some, rage. Then we will be gone, mourned for a brief time, a very brief time, my loves; it's true. The occasion will be what others make of it, and they will move on.
A man, who was a boy, who was a child...is gone. What did we know of him, and how much of that was his guise? Is this brief moment for him, or for us?
"Eram quod es, eris quod sum"
("I was what you are, you will be what I am".)
I never wished you peace, Dave, but I never wished you ill.
Peace