Immortality

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.

2 thoughts on “Immortality

  1. ian

    once again. i am retarded.

    i don’t normaly bore people with poetry, but this one, i think, is quite fitting.

    it goes as follow:

    Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines
    he wrote a poem
    And he called it “Chops”
    because that was the name of his dog
    And that’s what it was all about
    And his teacher gave him an A
    and a gold star
    And his mother hung it on the kitchen door
    and read it to his aunts
    That was the year Father Tracy
    took all the kids to the zoo
    And he let them sing on the bus
    And his little sister was born
    with tiny toenails and no hair
    And his mother and father kissed a lot
    And the girl around the corner sent him a
    Valentine signed with a row of X’s
    and he had to ask his father what the X’s meant
    Andhis father always tucked him in bed at night
    And was always there to do it

    Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines
    he wrote a poem
    And he called it “Autumn”
    because that was the name of the season
    And that’s what it was all about
    And his teacher gave him an A
    and asked him to write more clearly
    Andhis mother never hung it on the kitchen door
    because of its new paint
    And the kids told him
    that faterh tracy smoked cigars
    And left butts on the pews
    And sometimes they would burn holes
    That was the year his sister got glasses
    with thick lenses and black frames
    And the girl around the corner laughed
    when he asked her to go see Santa Clause
    And the kids told him why
    his mother and father kissed a lot
    And his father never tucked him in bed at night
    And his father goe mad
    when he cried for him to do it.

    Once on a paper torn from his notebook
    he wrote a poem
    And he called it “Innocence: A Question”
    because that was the question about his girl
    And that’s what it was all about
    And his professor gave him an A
    and a strange steady look
    And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
    because he never showed her
    That was the year that Father Tracy died
    And he forgot how the end
    of the Apostle’s Creed went
    And he caught his sister
    making out on the back porch
    And his mother and father never kissed
    or even talked
    And the girl around the corner
    wore too much makeup
    That made him cough when he kissed her
    but he kissed her anyway
    because that was the thing to do
    And at three A.M. he tucked himself into bed
    his father snoring soundly

    That’s why on the back of a brown paper bag
    he tried another
    And he called it “Absolutely Nothing”
    Because that’s what it was really all about
    And he gave himself an A
    and a slash on each damned wrist
    And he hung it on the bathroom door
    because this time he didn’t think
    he could reach the kitchen.

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