This is actually a semi-reply to an entry written by Josh. The main jumping point I’m using is this statement, “I have my friends, who stay with me after death, and carry my memory after I die.  I am immortal, and I grant them immortality.” Brace yourselves, this oughta be really cynical…

Do your friends really give you immortality? How many of you know your great great grandparents names, let alone the names of their friends? For those who do know, it’s most likely that one of these two cases apply to them: 1) they do a lot of genealogy, or 2) one of their great great grandparents was famous.

Interesting thing about fame: people remember it. I can name generals who fought in the civil war, but I can’t name my relatives who were living at that time. Some of those people looking to secure fame, or infamy, even, have made their place in history. They live on. They have the kids doing reports on them. All that’s left of some of your relatives is their genetic contributions.

Now that we live in a digital age, you can whip out pictures and videos. But once all the people who were personally there are gone, who’s going to remember the context of a picture? Who’s going to remember that time Bill shot milk out his nose? Etcetera. Memories die quickly. The things that stick out are what we deem historically important.

Ah, but I completely skipped over video. Video can provide a way for context to live on. Memories, voice, and more can live on. Yet, what’s more entertaining? Old home movies, or war/historical documentaries? Okay, maybe some of you will pick the former, but many will honestly pick the latter. Over time, though, the old home movies lose relevance. Memories begin to die.

Eventually, your friends die, and memories of you die with them. It’s a sad truth. Those who touch more, through so-called historically important events, will be the ones remembered. And it doesn’t matter whether they were “good” or “bad.”

There is one thing I missed that can preserve memories best, and it’s been around the longest: writing. Diaries and the like are excellent primary sources that provide a sense of how it was like to live during a certain period in history, or even a more recent period of time. Think of how much the diary of Anne Frank (spelling, name?) sold. Even now, I’m doing this with this weblog. Look at the new culture building up around these. Writing can highlight important moments and make things less dull than a home movie. Most people’s naturally semi-voyeuristic nature will make them interested in this sort of thing.

Yet, there’s so much writing that much of it is lost and dies. Again, the memories die. How many autobiographies of ordinary people are kids writing reports on? Also, the memories seem only to be useful to gauge a certain period of time, or different events taking place, and it’s not really about the person.

So in the end, it seems only the famous get their “immortality.” Fear not: Eventually, they die too. Smaller celebrities are lost quickly. Even kings are forgotten. Time kills all. Even the most important will eventually die when the universe itself dies. There is no such thing as true immortality.