We all dream of immortality. As if unconsciously knowing that nothing less can satisfy us. But we mix it up with infinite life, which would be nothing but a source of new sufferings. And it is precisely eternity that calls and awaits us. Honestly speaking, who among us is not afraid of death? Even the most educated, spiritual, religious, those who engage in philosophy and seek esoteric keys to the laws of life, even they feel respect mixed with fear before death, before the end of the cycle that marks an important change, some other stage, something we do not know or something that our consciousness, immersed in bodily experiences, has forgotten. If we could, we would spare ourselves from death and gladly exchange it for an eternal life full of meaningful experiences. If we could live forever, permanently incarnated in a body, obviously we would eliminate old age. Why live if we have to suffer the helplessness and decay of our abilities that come with old age? We would eliminate illness, sorrow, disappointment, wars and crimes, discouragement, infidelity, lies… so many things… In one word, we would eliminate pain and again seek an endless life in which there is no end to various pleasures and satisfactions.
Fear of death and insatiable desire for eternal life is an ancient thing. In each of us lies a being full of anxiety to live, without the terrifying shadow of death looming over us, a being that senses eternity… But it is not good to live forever under these circumstances. It is good to live forever if we know how to fulfill ideas that withstand the blows of time, if we can rise to eternity.
This fear of death, or rather this insatiable desire for eternal life, is an ancient thing. At the dawn of civilizations known in our chronological history, among the Sumerians who lived in the area of today’s Persian Gulf, there was a mythical hero – mythical? – by the name of Gilgamesh. He becomes a hero the moment he overcomes death and transcends himself as a human. The gods recognize Gilgamesh and he becomes immortal. Perhaps out of extreme joy, or perhaps because the rules were not like that.
Every day I contemplate the advantages of having infinite life compared to the possibility of taking action and pursuing my dreams. But every day, life “takes away” something dear to me and I wonder how long we could endure as everything that represents us, our role model, archetype, artistic pleasure, and moral satisfaction slowly disappears. Who among us does not have a favorite person, thinker, artist, poet, or teacher whom we would not want to lose for anything in the world? And yet they leave us… today one, tomorrow another… they distance themselves from this theater of events and go to unknown lands beyond.
I, whose happiness has been tied to the black and white keys of the piano for years, suffer watching all these musicians go away… without asking me, without warning! It hurts me to think that there will no longer be records, tapes, or instruments through which they could continue their art. It hurts me to know that those dear melodies The hands perform their agile steps completely outside of what my eyes can see. And I feel lonely, although there are new, even better ones.
And I understand Gilgamesh. No, it is not good to live forever, on this side and under these circumstances. It is good to live forever if we know how to fulfill ideas that withstand the test of time, if we can rise to the eternity that we love the most: an unchanged landscape, music resonating without cables and devices, human beings with whom we share important things, we live noble ideas and emotions, completely different needs, completely different physical pain that spiritual satisfaction eases.
It is possible that myths are not fictional and unreal as we are often taught. It is possible that myths contain an unquestionable wealth of wisdom if we make an effort to extract deeper meaning from them. It is possible that each of us has something of that mythical inside us and that everyone lives it by their own standards and in their own way. It is possible that in each of us, a hero sleeps waiting for us to transcend the ultimate and… temptations, once experienced pain, once lived joy, bringing the understanding of the laws of life, of life and death, inseparable faces of the same coin.
Honestly, no matter how hard we try, we can’t do anything more: those who have understood the world and events in it know much more about it than we do and perfectly understand the reason for every situation we must face in order to evolve. What a misfortune it is to be eternal like Gilgamesh and yet mourn for death!
What a misfortune it is to be eternal and not realize it!