Immortality is often the focus of many novels, stories and intrigues. All through time stories from the Epic of Gilgamesh to The Picture of Dorian Gray have focused on immortality and one trying (and failing) to achieve such a grandiose fate. But I sincerely wonder why is it does everyone fail? Sure there are some cases i'm sure where immortality is successfully achieved but for the most part it’s not every hero who seeks it that gets it. Perhaps this speaks to our own beliefs and longings that if we cannot achieve such great things our protagonists can’t either.
Whether someone willingly sacrifices there obtained immortality or just can’t seem to fully achieve it, our protagonists seem to fail in their occasional ultimate goal to live forever. Gilgamesh nearly gets there twice, each time failing either because he drops the fruit that would let him live forever or, when given a second chance he quite literally falls asleep. It is after a failed second attempt we get a sappy realization from the great king of Uruk that he just wasn’t meant to live forever and in an extremely humanizing move, he dies. In this earliest work of literature we have to examine, the focus seems to lay on legacy as the only path for ourselves to take if we want to come close to immortality. I believe that Gilgamesh died for the comfort of the authors, maybe in a sort of jealous way, maybe in a comforting way, but in the end because they knew it as their fate it was to be Gilgamesh’s as well.
In Oscar Wilde’s take on immortality, the main character, Dorian, ends his own life over the ugliness of his immoral actions. He cannot take the things he's done because he suffers no conceivable consequence and as such must take retribution into his own hands. Certainly a different approach than that of the king of Uruk but still ending with immortality sitting there their own hands and failing to keep it in them.
Today we have many, countless companies researching everything from Cryogenics to uploading the human mind to a computer. Renowned scientists who focus solely on reverse aging research and seeking to end the disease known to us as “aging”. We funnel lifetimes of research and work and money to see the ultimate goal of keeping it going forever while many argue it would end the human race. Some take a spiritual approach to the whole, the New Testament promises life eternal to all who follow the teachings of Jesus while the Tao Te Ching seeks to achieve immortality through a “Oneness with nature”.
All in all I think it’s all very interesting the many different approaches to achieving the same end result and how through time there has always been this focus. Even the first words in our novel Super Sad True Love Story revoke the immortalist Dylan Thomas poem “Do not go gentle into that good night”. I think this culture-pervading focus highlights the importance to each individual of the idea of immortality and is something worth researching.
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