Immortality

On one fateful day, I was discussing about the issue of immortality with a close friend of mine. We finally arrived at the conclusion that immortality is more a bane than a blessing to the extent that he himself personally resented the idea of being immortal. Yet, many great rulers and kings, including the ruthless Qin Shihuang Di, the first Emperor of a united China, had sought immortality. Why has this idea of transcending death so bewildered these leaders to the effect that their obssession was actually written down in history?

True, immortality allows man to escape death and the pain that comes right before it. It enables a king to get a grip on his power perpetually, at least until he is toppled by an opposing faction. However, being immortal means seeing all the things around you and all the people, including your friends and loved ones, fade away and die, thus a heart-breaking experience. Immortality dooms one to the prospect of weariness of his or her perpetual existence, that is to be tired of being around in the world too long. The elves of Tolkien's magical world suffered that way until they finally decided to leave for Valinor, an alternate form of heaven. Time becomes immaterial when one is immortal thus the value of every minute becomes meaningless as he or she loses the appreciation of time.

Somehow, being immortal means that one becomes ever present in a changing world, a constant that opposes the dynamic cycle of creation and destruction that has defined almost everything in the world. Age old continents will be destroyed some day, swallowed into the bosom of the earth while new continents are constructed by volcanoes spewing forth the raw material to make new lands. Even the seemingly unchanging stars will die in a grand explosion of dazzling light and far-strewn debris, which will be the basic materials to form even newer stars. By becoming immortal, one suffers no destruction and rebirth, thus defying this basic law of nature. In effect, immortality is a mere imaginative fabrication of the human thoughts that can never be materialised in the real, physical world.

Even if man cannot be immortalised in flesh, he strives to be immortalised in name. Whether it is out of coincidental circumstances or due to egoistical pride, these "immortals" have made a deep dent in human history. Several noteworthy ones such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa are hailed in the international arena as great individuals who have opposed colonial authority, racial oppression and poverty to bring the certain communities to a better state of living. Others including Nero Hitler, and Stalin are publicly shunned for causing misery and death amongst mankind. The similarity between these groups is that they are widely known and recognised for their deeds, whether good or evil, to the extent that they post-humously "live on" in the minds of the millions of people. In effect, they have become "immortalised" to the generations to come when they read about these "immortals" in the history books.

This historical construct of immortality, however, is subjected to the persistence of human civilisation. Should civilisation ever crumble and its knowledge becomes lost, the aforementioned "immortals" would lose their "gifts" and would in a way suffer a second "death".

Ultimately, immortality is an impossibility. Even Qin Shi HuangDi, who dared to put himself equal to the gods by calling himself "Huang Di", a title traditionally ascribed to the deities, die eventually and have his flesh eaten by the transcience of time. We are born mortals and we should die mortals.