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How To Live Forever: Achieveing Immortality Through Words

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We’ve all heard it at some point. That famous saying,

“There are only two things certain in life: death and taxes.”

The mere concept of death can ironically stop our pulse and evoke an array of fears inside of us: the unknown, the end, utter and complete loss…

While we seem to be deathly afraid of death, we cannot allude it (as the above quote implies.)

So the question I ask now…

How do we beat the system? How do we live forever?

Can we?

Are there methods available?

The Permanence of Words

While this article is not about cloning or mind-uploading (we’ll save those subjects for some future articles), I want to talk about something I believe in to be everlasting and un-dying, an entrance into eternity itself.

Words.

“Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.” — The Name of the Wind

When we write or speak from the heart, our words carry a little bit of us with them. There’s something special about words. Even as other mediums evolve and shift, I find the sheer nature of words staying powerfully the same.

I remember stumbling across a piece of marriage advice from 1886 once. It shocked me how relevant, how powerful and poignant the phrases were in application to life today.

Believe the best, rather than the worst, for people have a way of living up, or down to your own opinion of them.
Remember that true friendship is the basis for any lasting relationship. The person you choose to marry is deserving of the courtesy and kindness you bestow on friends.
Please hand this down to your children and your children’s children.” — Jane Wells (1886)

I cannot watch one of the first films ever created, the Lumière brothers’ Arrival of a Train (1896), the same way I can read these words. Though I can appreciate the film from a historical perspective, I do not get the same thrill and impression that the viewers of the time did. (Apparently as rumor has it, people witnessing the movie for the first time actually thought a train was charging toward them and they leapt away)

That same thrill has vanished from today’s viewers, who would mostly look at the film as old or outdated (though I did have one particular Professor in college who shivered with excitement anytime a Mutoscope or Vitascope was mentioned…perhaps another article on that some day as well ?)

Can you read the advice from 1886 the same way the people of the time did? Though you’re looking at them from a computer or mobile device, the sheer words have not changed. They’re poignant. They’re alive.

I find that good books and stories, powerful quotes and advice, still ring true today. They are what we pass on to our children and our children’s children. They never die.

Where other mediums seem to change with the times, words stay powerfully eternal.

Words That Change The World

Words are more than just a unit of language. Words can live on for us, well past the time our bodies have perished into the ground.

Think of Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have A Dream Speech.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Martin Luther King Jr.’s words were so powerful, they started a movement. That movement still thrives now.

And Martin Luther King Jr. is still alive today, as much as he ever was.

“My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences.” –Tahereh Mafi

The Eternal Power of Story

Why do I write? Because I believe stories can change the world.

Stories, good stories, can also be told forever.

“I’ll tell you a secret. Old storytellers never die. They disappear into their own story.” ―Vera Nazarian

The worlds that J. R. R. Tolkien and J.K Rowling created (through the sheer power of words) seem so concrete, so real, that I know the authors live on every time someone picks up their books. Their stories resemble realities, alive forever in the mind of the reader.

“I always thought the key to immortality would be, like, tiny robots fixing things in your brain,” she says. “Not books.” — Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore

I cannot wait for the day where I can read Harry Potter to my children. The book series touched me so deeply growing up, it molded my character. I feel like a bit of J.K Rowling lives inside of me now and always will. I cannot wait for the day she will live inside of the hearts of the future I will bring into this world as well.

Living On Through Others

Joseph Campbell said something very interesting once when discussing the interconnectedness between the themes of life and death in stories and myths.

“It’s a basic theme: that which dies is born. You have to have death in order to have life.”

He went on to say,

“Every generation has to die in order that the next generation should come. As soon as you beget or give birth to a child, you are the dead one; the child is the new life and you are simply the protector of that new life.” — Joseph Campbell

While this is an unorthodox view of raising children, it does make sense. Though I have no children of my own yet, I enjoy seeing my nieces and nephew, teaching them the lessons I’ve learned, showing them the stories I deeply love. Essentially I am leaving a part of me with them they can always have. I’m growing them into adults that will take care of this world when I am gone.

My sister actually calls my niece by my name sometimes on accident. She says my niece reminds her so much of me as a child. Physically she looks like me, and when we go out people often mistake me as her mother. Mentally, she acts like me (we both share a passionate, energetic, and sometimes clumsy approach to life). Is she me? No. But do I feel like a part of my DNA and essence lives on through her? Yes.

There’s a really great moment in the first Harry Potter book, The Sorcerer’s Stone, (sorry for yet another Harry Potter reference…but actually not so sorry…) where Harry looks into a special mirror that shows him all of his late relatives and family that have passed on.

Harry Potter Fan Art I made

Some have the same color eyes as him. Some have the same hair. Some have the same knobbly knees. Very literally and physically, these ancestors live on through Harry.

Generations go, but we carry their physical characteristics. We carry their eyes or their noses or pieces of them that have shaped us into who we are today. We carry the lessons they teach, the experiences they share, the life they teach us to live by.

Sharing Our Experiences

There’s a Star Trek: Voyager episode that always seems to pop up in my head from time to time called Mortal Coil.

In the episode, Seven of Nine (a cyborg who is relearning her humanity), tells another crew member named Tuvok that,

“Human attitudes toward death are perplexing…There seem to be countless rituals and cultural beliefs designed to alleviate their fear of a simple biological truth: all organisms eventually perish…”

The rest of Seven’s conversation goes like this,

Tuvok: I take it the Borg have no fear of that biological truth?
Seven of Nine: None. When a drone is damaged beyond repair, it is discarded. But its memories continue to exist in the collective consciousness. To use a human term, the Borg are immortal.
Tuvok: You are no longer part of the Collective. You are mortal now like the rest of us. Does that disturb you?
Seven of Nine: My connection to the Borg has been severed. But the Collective still possesses my recollections, my experiences. In a sense, I will always exist.
Tuvok: Fascinating. That must be a great relief.
Seven of Nine: [thinking] Yes. It is.

Seven of Nine Fan Art I made

While I don’t condone the Borg’s policy to assimilate beings into their collective against their will, I do think that the idea of something deceased living on through a group’s memory is rather wonderful.

Though I am sad that some people I love have now passed on (and oh how I would prefer them to be here with me now instead), I still feel them here, alive with me, inside my mind and memories.

Like Simba looking at his reflection only to see his father, Mufasa, staring back at him, we allow others to live on through us when we keep them close to us.

“If we are remembered even in some small way we will always exist.” ― Julie Kagawa

When we remember and cherish the past, it lives on into the future.

On To Immortality

“Oh how wrong we were to think immortality meant never dying” — Gerard Way

Are there methods to live forever on this Earth? Perhaps in ways we don’t think of right away, in forms that have existed since our ancestors drew cave paintings on walls…

When we cherish the words of others, others live on inside of us.

When we share their stories, we allow ourselves to live on too. It’s a wonderful beautiful circle of life that is based on connection, experience, and the power of sharing words.

Words can change the world. Words can start movements and mold people. Words can allow us to live on. Forever.

Want More? Join readers getting The Positopian, a bi-weekly dose of positive fiction, resources & insights. We’ll also send you awe-inspiring Positopian “artifacts” and giveaways — escape into worlds that will help you to become a better person today!

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Source: medium.com

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