I have quite the pile of to-do blogs growing. This is one of four that I've reserved titles for but have yet to begin writing. It's the end of the semester, and I've been very busy writing papers and studying. Or at least calling whatever it is I do 'studying'. I can start off just fine with reading relevant information, but then I wind up either reading Wikipedia entries on the monarchs of any given country or an article on Cracked about the '6 Most Unlikely Victories in History' or something.
Anyway, I'm going out of the order that I should be in, and for that I apologize. I have an idea for a essay pertaining to 'The Hobbit', but this will be written first as it requires less research.
One day last week (or rather many weeks ago, as it's taken me this long to getting around to this entry again) my professor concluded a lecture on The Odyssey with a question to ponder. As we all know (Save for one of my coworkers who has managed to go his entire life without being exposed to classic mythology. I don't care if he's Pakistani, everyone in the westernized world knows The Odyssey.), Odysseus find himself living with a beautiful goddess on her island for seven years. Calypso falls in love with Odysseus and asks him to stay with her, but he vows to leave one day and return to his wife in Ithaca. Calypso tries to counter him, offering immortality and agelessness. Agelessness is important, as the Greeks were very well aware that immortality did make one young eternally. So the question we had to ponder was whether or not we would take the offer.
Of course, my answer was that I wouldn't. Who could live an endless life doing nothing but laze around basking in one's immortality? It would get boring. Having decided that it was the wisest choice, I left it at that and carried on. I'm rather fond of the idea of mortality and a silly question like that is easy, right?
Wrong. Two days later, as I sat comfortably on my regular everyday route that I would likely have to ride everyday for the rest of time were I immortal and living the same old hohum life, I found myself reading the account in The Fellowship of the Ring where the quartet meet Tom Bombadil. I've met Tom before. Even before I'd ever read 'The Hobbit' or 'The Lord of the Rings', I'd always pretended to see such a man as he from the corner of my eye. A bearded little nuisance just waiting to influence me to distraction. And did I ever get distracted. That's beside the point.
What I noticed about Tom this go around is that he's immortal. Alright, so this was a given and not so much a revelation, but I couldn't help but think back to the lecture and the question. Is immortality all that it's cracked up to be? In a reality where maturity is key to survival, I've long since abandoned the passing fancy of magical beings tickling my imagination. Nope, this kid is a grown up, and unfortunately I have been one for a very long time. I'm ready to work myself to death, producing money to pay for my living until I keel over. So what's the point? Immortality is impossible and silly and a waste of time.
Time. That's it. It was in reading through the chapter, watching Tom's character that I realized that the answer is not that immortality is NOT desirable. On the contrary, it's absolutely everything we should be working toward. The problem we have with immortality is this misconception that immortality is just as stuck in time as mortality is. If we live forever, day in and day out with an awareness that we are subject to time, then of course immortality is undesirable!
Take a look at the way Tom lives. He goes about his days doing whatever the Duck he pleases. He sings to trees and talks in rhyme and juggles magic rings made of evil as though they aren't capable of destroying the world. Why? Time is fleeting. Time is not forever. Immortality is. As the minutes die, your life doesn't have to end. Wasting time is a perception placed upon us by the Council of Lame Old People Who Regret Life.
Okay, so that might come across as being very immature to say, and believe me, I'm not one to waste time. I have goals to meet and things to do, but you know what? I have to spend time and waste time to get there. As long as you're putting yourself to good use, what's the issue? How are you bored? When I find myself stuck on a bus getting from point A to point B, I'm not wasting time. I take in the scenery, ponder existence, take a short trip to a far off place. I don't consider that a waste of time at all.
In organizing my overwhelmingly still unorganized thoughts on this, I imagined a day in the life of Tom Bombadil, as an immortal who doesn't care to think about time. He wakes up (assuming that one not bound by time actually sleeps) in the morning, blinks once or twice and thinks "Wow, I'm aware of myself. I'm alive! What is this flat surface above my head? I'll call it a foor (It was a roof yesterday and probably will be tomorrow, so why not?)! Good smells!" At which he promptly jigs his way downstairs to the kitchen where Goldberry has a fantastic feast prepared for his morning consumption. Following breakfast, Tom spends the day observing and relearning the nature about him. Perhaps he remembers them, perhaps he doesn't. The point is that he maintains the perspective that everything is new and can be appreciated accordingly.
So while it might have sucked to live forever on an island with Calypso, and though I agree with Odysseus' decision to leave, I don't agree at all that immortality is going to be an eternal snooze fest. To think that way is to think with your feet on the ground. If immortality is impossible, then stop thinking about it like it is probability.
Which brings me to my last point, and I mentioned it earlier, immortality is what we should be aiming for. It's been a topic of philosophy since, oh, forever. What do we do with it? Is there an afterlife? My question in response is whether it matters? I've stated I believe in an afterlife. I'd like to imagine that this afterlife will be spent doing whatever I like and emulating a life like Tom Bombadil's. Odysseus' immortality would have been spent in a mortal state of mind, and I don't want to do that. But even if they're no afterlife, what is immortality? Memory. Memory transcends time and space and goes forever. Even if forgotten, the mere fact that memory was ever remembered is a testament to its endurance. So what if there's nothing? If I end up as nothing but memory, I will have succeeded in living a life worth the remembrance. Win for me. Take that, Cronus!
So... that was a dump of thought. Sorry if it made no sense. I'm having a pretty excitable day today.
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