Immortality appears as a gift at the first glance. But if you look deeper into what life becomes as an immortal, you will realize that it’s a curse. If I am not mistaken, I first learned about this ability from a vampire movie, not sure if it was from Blade. I became so obsessed with it like many kids back then and many of us saw the ability to live forever as a great thing.
We wanted to gather wealth from different generations and eventually become the richest in money and knowledge after witnessing so many events just for living over a thousand years. I remember how me and some kids used to take turns to narrate how we would live as an immortal not knowing it wasn't a good thing.
One Yoruba movie titled Gbekude, forced me to rethink my wish to become an immortal. I don’t know the direct translation of Gbekude, but it’s a movie about a warrior. He was so powerful that both humans and deity feared him. He got into a fight over a spoilt food with a spirit called soil and this warrior vowed never to be buried in the soil. He eventually got the power to become an immortal and it was beautiful at first. But as years passed, his ability to outlive everyone became a curse.
Everyone he knew passed away and he started praying for death, but it didn’t come. His life eventually became miserable.
After seeing the movie many years ago, I thought about immortality critically and concluded that it’s the worst thing that can ever happen to any human. This realization hit me hard, as I can’t imagine myself outliving everyone I love and care about.
Every time you make a family or friends, they will be gone someday while you are stuck here. I have thought about retaining my current physique as an immortal, but it doesn’t look like anything would work without keeping my loved ones around because they have made life beautiful for me. Without them, it will be pretty hard to remain here for thousands of years.
Constantly witnessing each generation of family and friends go is a severe torture. Being immortal doesn’t prevent pain and when those pains pile up, it would eventually break me. The burden of living for so long can eventually become regret meaning remaining a mortal will always be the best option.
Death as God’s Favor
The Bible said everything God created was good. Including death to be the end of man is a great favor. He definitely knows that living more than we should wouldn’t end well for anyone.
The Old Guard movie reminds me of immortals doing their best to protect the world from evil. Moreover, there selfless actions often go unappreciated and despite everything they did, they became a target to some people who were interested in their powers. With technology, it won’t be long before some crazy scientist realizes that you have been around for too long. That would draw so much attention and that could make me end up as a laboratory object.
I choose to remain a mere mortal which also means, embracing peace. When my time is up here, I can become an angel, resting pretty far away from all the problems of the world. My loved ones will mourn, which is good and they will someday become angels too.
So, no one gets to suffer forever hurting because I am no longer here. If I am the one watching everyone pass away, the pain would be surely unbearable.
Images used are mine.
