the concept of immortality ?

Okay hi. Before I get into the actual stuff here I just want to mention that I recently watched Dead Poets Society for the first time and it actually completely ruined my life in the best way possible and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. And I’ve also been thinking about lots of other things because of it too. Which I guess is sort of where this came from. So….. yeah. 

Alright, getting actually into it. I don’t have any plan for this, I’m just making it up as I go so bear with me here if this doesn’t quite make sense.

 I’ve been thinking a lot about how strange the concept of immortality is. And more specifically about how our perception of the concept has seemed to change over time pretty drastically. Which I think is really interesting. Hundreds (or even thousands) of years ago, immortality was seen as some great thing; the thing that everyone seemed to want for some reason. I mean, look at all the myths about the Gods and other various immortal beings that were so common in the past. And even more recently than that, in things like vampire stories, even. And then, more recently, we seem to have shifted into a sort of belief that immortality would actually be a horrible and terrible thing to have to live with – making it into more of a horror concept than anything. People thinking more about the aspects of it like having to stay young while everyone you know and love dies, having to move around often and leave everything behind so people don’t realise what you are – even going so far as wondering about how it would be to witness the end of the world, wondering to what extent immortality actually reaches – if you were to live billions of years to see the sun go supernova, would you then be floating in the void for the rest of eternity? And obviously I think that these are all pretty valid concerns. I understand where they’re coming from. But I feel like it’s really interesting that we seem to have done a complete 180 on immortality. 

And I think that this is definitely one of those things where you don’t really know anything unless you’re experiencing it for yourself, which (I assume) will never be possible. But honestly I’d like to think that maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. Yeah, I do generally have a fear of death, and an even worse fear (phobia? probably) of forgetting things. Which, I mean, death is definitely the final form of forgetting. It’s losing everything all at once. But anyway, that’s not the point. What I mean to say is that I’m sure that affects my thought process here, but I do genuinely believe that being immortal wouldn’t be so bad. There are so many things I want to do, so many places I want to see, so many books to read and movies to watch and songs to listen to – and realistically we just don’t have time. I mean, sure, life is a lot longer than we think it is – which is something else I want to write about soon – but it’s realistically nowhere near long enough to do all of these things in one lifetime, especially if you aren’t a millionaire – which I certainly am not, and I assume most of us here aren’t. The thing about immortality is that all it really does is give you more time. There are so many things that I wish I could know more about, and you could learn everything if you just had the time to do it. I want to be a writer, obviously, but I also love ancient history and archaeology, I love philosophy, I love entomology (bugs), and a million other things that I can’t list, or we would be here forever. The idea of being immortal is more comforting to me than anything. Yes, the loss of loved ones would be a tragic thing to deal with, but realistically, it’s something we have to go through eventually anyways. That’s something that will always be there, immortality or not. So I’d like to think that it’s something that I could get used to, one way or another. I’d like to think that immortality, at least to a certain extent, could actually be something incredible. There is so much to learn and do and see and as much as life is longer than we often think it is, there is nowhere near enough time to do everything. 

But anyways. I just think that in general this is a really interesting concept, especially when you look at how much our general idea of it has changed over time. If anyone else has any other thoughts/comments/ideas definitely feel free to go crazy in the comments about it :)