Vampires

Is it a blessing or a curse to live forever? To die is to end relationships. With spouses, friends, children, parents. This is sad. It's not sad for the person who is dying, because they will not experience the loss, except as a feeling of anticipation. But it is undeniably sad for those that are left behind.

But if you could live forever, would that be the answer? I think no, unless everyone lives forever along with you. If you were the only one living forever, it would seem like more of a curse than a blessing. You will continuouly repeatedly experience loss, as those around you live a lifetime and die, leaving you with a void in your life.

Then, what is the answer? To live oblivious that our relationship will come to an end? This is easier when you are young. Children, or teenagers, or even young adults live blissfully unaware of the passage of time, or the finiteness of our existence. But as we inevitably get older, and our bodies slow down and fail, giving us a unavoidable reminder that our bodies have an expiration date.

What about the concept of a soul? That will live on forever? It is cold comfort for me to say that we will live on forever in some form of existence that is so radically different from our current one that it is impossible to fathom or imagine. To be told that our existence will continue in some shape or form is cold comfort. How can we be happy about or even begin to understand such a radically different way to exist?

So what is the answer? Some sort of vague notion that we'll continue an existence akin to our current one, but in "heaven"? This is so problematic that it is hard to even begin to unpack the many ways it is unsatisfactory.

I think of art as maybe an answer. It gives us soothes our minds for a fleeting moment. It takes us away from the heavy burden of a person who is aware of our impending terminal end, and gives us pleasure. This can be art as in visual art, or more often that not, music or performance art.

Do drug users manage to experience the same escape, through the injection of chemicals in their body? Perhaps, but it seems contradictory at best since the very act of consuming drugs quickly destroys all good things about their life, and shortly thereafter, brings about an ignoble end.

With many millenia of human existence, there is more beauty and art that mankind has produced at this point than can be consumed in a life time. Just as in the age of Netflix and other internet streaming, there are far more content than can be consumed by a person. It is all we can do to simply enjoy and digest the beauty that the people that have lived before us have produced. Bethoven. The great works of architecture. The commulative, layered beauty of the architecture and culture of ancient cities. Works of great literature. Dostoevsky. This all gives us solace and comfort in an otherwise unbearably depressing mortal existence.