Drink Thy Elixir!

                One of my many childhood dreams has been to live immortally, because who does not want to, right? Most humans are scared of death, probably because humans tend to fear the unknown, and I know that it is the case for me. I now realized, once I have grown and hopefully matured a bit, that immortality would be a terrible idea in multiple aspects, or at least it would be for me. It is not explicitly stated in the terms of immortality, I guess, but eternal youth is not a condition. So, with each growing day, a body would just grow more decrepit over time, which eventually it might just be a personal prison your soul is locked inside of. Even if eternal youth were granted, I would hate to see all my friends and family grow up without me, and eventually I would start over, find a new life and friends, and probably end up as Edward from Twilight.

                To be completely serious though, I could probably not deal with the fact that I will not see my friends after they die, because I honestly get extremely attached to everything, even inanimate objects. Last summer when my parents told me to clean out my room, I literally threw away leftover homework from the school year, and nothing else, even though my bookshelf is filled with books I never read anymore but have a sentimental value. Then there is the fact that my room is also filled with quite a bit of stuffed animals too, and I do not play with those either, but still cannot bear to see them in another room, or even worse, the trash, and knowing my mother, she would do it without a thought about how emotionally traumatized I would be.

                I thought about this topic because of the book I finished reading, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which does not have much to do with living forever in a literal sense, but it is an interesting book. In a figurative sense, the main(ish) character is living because her cells were stolen and reproduced without her explicit permission, but since they are too widespread now, there is not much anyone can do about it. I really hope that Henrietta’s mind is not still living, even though it should have died with the brain, one never can really tell, because the people who know about the life beyond death or whatever is beyond death, are not exactly in a position to tell us.