When I saw the writing prompts for this weekend, something whispered “Immortality” in my mind immediately I read the second prompt. This was a no brainer. But perhaps, immortality would’ve been the last thing you would think someone would consider to be worse than death because it is the other side of the coin. But a few people that think like me, would’ve screamed immortality in their head as soon as they saw the prompt too.
Even without reading all the reasons I’m about to unload in this article, you probably already agree with me. It just makes sense. Maybe in your own little brainstorm, you might’ve missed some points on why immortality is a total no no and worse than death. So let me be a good lad and remind you.
Yeah sure, death is a concept most people are scared of, but is a certainty we know. Our consciousness just totally refuses to admit that it will not exist one day, even though it knows it.
However, sad and fearful as death may be, it serves a few good purposes. With no death, we’re actually going to be subjected to more misery than we thought immortality will give us joy. Here are a couple of reasons why. Before that though, I feel like I should define what immortality in the sense I understand it is.
In my definition, immortality would basically be being incapable of dying. Living forever. This means nothing that can lead to your inevitable death can happen to you.
Now let’s really get into it.
No end
Immortality means you don’t die. Never. That means there’s no end to the pain, the misery the suffering. Maybe you’d say if you were immortal, you’d live an awesome life. Maybe you would, maybe not. But even if you did live an awesome immortal life, the awesomeness will drive you mad at some point, as the years turn into decades, and the decades into centuries, and the centuries into millenniums and on and on it goes.
Life will be meaningless without death.
What makes life and the things we do during our lifetimes meaningful is the fact that we know we’re on a ticking clock and that we’ll expire soon. Tell me, what motivation will you have to get that degree, or go sky diving if you never you have an eternity to do it? Fun things like bucket lists wouldn’t even exist because well there’s no bucket to kick. What will be the point of going swimming for the God knows what time. Everything just becomes meaningless and boring when you do them long enough.
Watching civilizations rise and fall is not as interesting as you thought.
You probably thought the “I’ve watched civilizations rise and fall, emperors come and go” and that type of shit you heard in movies was fun huh? I bet you you wouldn’t find it as much fun if you actually experienced it. Why? Because guess what…with the rise and fall of civilizations, guess how many lovers, or friends you’ll watch die as you just continue living your life. At some point, you wouldn’t even be human anymore watching so many people you love (or loved) die so many times over.
Fading Memories
This just goes to buttress my previous point about watching civilizations rise and fall, and watching the people you love die over and over again. At some point, there would just be too many people and memories for your brain to keep up with. You’ll struggle to remember things that happened a year ago because you have several millenniums worth of years to choose a “a year ago” from.
That first love will be forgotten in give or take, one millennium at best if she really struck you hard. You won’t even remember her name, talk less of her face in a millennium and that’s not even where it ends. That graduation party and all your friends from your “first graduation”, forgotten. Even the average person with a short lifespan struggles with remembering things that happened a few years ago and we live what 70-75 years? Rookie numbers to an immortal being wouldn’t you agree?
Yearn for the one thing you absolutely can never have-death
The human mind is built to be curious. That is the driving force for civilization and development. We want to experience things we’ve never experienced before, and with every passing millennium, you’re going to wish to experience what everyone you’ve ever known has experienced- death. Isn’t that just ironic? The immortal wants to experience the one thing they can’t.
A little point for if your definition of immortality was a bit different from mine.
I told you the definition I was writing based on, but I can’t be the judge of what immortality is to you.
Let’s say in your case, your definition is that things that can lead to your inevitable death can happen to you, but you just won’t die. So for a situation like getting run over by a car where you can’t really control the situation, you WILL get run over by the car, you just won’t die. All bones and everything will heal again back to normal after the accident.
In a narrative like this, immortal is the worst thing to be. You can get bet burnt alive for years, decades even, and you still won’t die. This is a situation that will have you begging for a quick death. And you’re going to want to consider this point very well because if you found yourself in very ancient civilizations, you’re most likely going to be considerer a sorcerer of some sort. And we both know how much love(hate) people in those era showed witches and wizards.
Your chances of being burnt on a stake? surer than the fact that you’re actually immortal (if you ever tried to find out). But guess who is not dying on that stake for however long they burn him? You’d basically be a crisp human steak roasting long enough to be displayed in a museum as some sort of wonder for civilizations to come.
I’ve said too much at this point and I won’t make anymore sense if I keep talking. You tell me now, from everything you know already, and what you just read, would you rather experience death or be immortal? Which do you think is worse? Yeah that’s what I thought. Enjoy your the weekend now, grateful that you’ll die someday. Not something you would’ve expected to be grateful for today, I know.
All pictures used in this post belongs to me and were taken using my iPhone 11 pro max
Who Authored This Post?
I am 