Eternity

   Today I wanted to talk about something that I’ve been thinking about lately. I’m scared of death. I think we all are to some extent, but not existing on this earth is truly terrifying to me. It’s not necessarily the pain from dying that scares me or the lack of new experiences. It’s something deeper. It’s the thought of being forgotten. I don’t want it to be like I never existed in this world. With time, there’s a chance that my mark on this world will permanently fade, however. The people I loved will die, and their memories of me will die along with them. How do you live with that? We all want to be immortalized. In fact, we want that so much that scientists have been trying to figure out ways to do exactly that for years. People have tried to figure out how to stop the aging process, how to develop ways to make the body heal itself more efficiently, and lately, theories have even been thrown around that involve the possibility of transferring our consciousness into something else. It’s not that simple, though. We die. That’s the truth. No amount of research or technology will ever make us indestructible. It’s a cruel fact, but it’s one that I’m starting to come to terms with.

   That’s not what I wanted to leave everyone with, though. It’s just something you have to understand before you can fully appreciate how our world works. People pursue a lot of things, but very few people try to immortalize themselves. I’m here to tell you that you should spend as much time as possible trying to do exactly that - just not in the same way as people try to do it in a science fiction movie. There are many people who have shaped who I am. My parents have given me many good traits through seeing their example, and I’ve even picked up a few bad ones from them. You see, what I take from them goes farther than genes. I’ll teach my children a lot of the things that they taught me. Let’s go even deeper, though. Long gone musicians and writers have been my inspiration to push forward in life, and honestly, I haven’t been able to keep from drawing inspiration from their work. Even when I try to be completely original, there’s still one simple fact that remains. My inspiration and ideas are linked to things that a lot of great men and women did. My ideas are often built on principles that they created. I see how they did things, and I want to do them even better, but I have to acknowledge one simple fact. I might not even have the desire to do the things I do without them. In a way, everything I do is theirs. I can say the same for teachers. Their passion for writing, science, and history has rubbed off on me. I see my love for these subjects as my own, but it’s really not. It’s a reflection of a seed that they planted in my mind. In a way, every single person I ever help develop a love for one of these things will be because of the person who first gave me that love.

   This is the basic thing I want anyone reading this to take away. Give your children lessons that they won’t be able to help passing on to their kids, be passionate in such a way that it’s infectious to those around you, and finally, write down every thought, record every moment, and take every picture possible. Your actions, passions, and the records of your life are going to be what’s left when you’re gone. I fully plan to be immortal, or at least I plan to do everything I can to stay a part of this world for a very long time. I’ll love, impart knowledge, write, and leave behind a trail of breadcrumbs that future generations may not even realize belong to me. I’ll live through my future children, my characters, and maybe most of all, the seeds that I plant in everyone around me - the ones that people can’t help but spread to other people in their lives.

   If you want immortality, it’s actually within reach. It’s not in a pill form, and it’s not accomplished by some type of program in a science fiction movie. It’s much more simple than that. It can be seen in complex people like George Washington, Frank Sinatra, Robert Frost, and every person that history didn’t write down who shaped these influential individuals. It’s an example or a memory, but not an ordinary one. It’s one that transcends time and even when we don’t realize it exists, continues to keep our hearts beating, if nothing else, in the minds of everyone in our world.