[immortality]

It is a matter of frustration to me that I will never know all the things I want to; that there is a limit to the knowledge that I am capable of possessing. Mortality has never fazed me, I have few feelings regarding my inevitable death except that I'd rather it be quick. I will live for as long as I do, and try to be the best that I can be until then. But I have moments when I wonder, wish it were possible, to imagine the vast potential of immortality.

In my mind there is a sort of heaviness to the thought. The weight of knowledge. It would be serene, I suppose, for that is how immortals are always imagined to be. Cool judgement, unruffled by rampant emotions and the foibles that are so often men's undoing. How long would a person have to live before life stopped offering further lessons to learn?

If one could be born to live indefinitely I cannot help but imagine the satisfaction of obtaining knowledge, knowing that there is no eventual, premature end-date. It is man's doom that he will never fully understand anything, for in order to do so it would be necessary for him to understand everything. What would a man be like, if he were able to eventually understand everything?

But it is a this point in my ruminations that I wonder if the human soul would be able to bear it; the lives that end; the nations that rise and then crumble into dust; the endless stream of knowledge; the experiences and observations hung about your shoulders, each a grain of wisdom forged in bitter, bitter experiences. The endless seeing and seeing, and understanding and knowing, and watching as errors are made again and again, as death, and pain, and bitter, bitter experiences are repeated over and over again. I think I would never stop crying if I were a god.

I do not think a human would choose to be wise if he were to live forever.

And yet...I falter here. I wish I could be wise; that every triumph in understanding were not dimmed by the knowledge that there is an infinity of understanding that I will always lack. Knowing you know nothing is supposed to be the beginning of wisdom, but for me, that realization feels like a betrayal that does not grow less painful with time.

The feeling never fails to catch me off guard; it's like the feeling of heartbreak in your chest, that makes you realize emotions can physically hurt. It's despair and confusion and hurt and the bleak sense of wondering what the point is to anything. I am always tempted to throw rocks at the sky and inquire dully, "is this necessary?" Christianly I know the answer, but sometimes, when I sit in the dark and think about immortality, I am dissatisfied.