Craving for immortality is a human instinct. I remember reading a novel that attracted me deeply in childhood. Its name is Tuck Everlasting (Natalie Babbitt, 1975). The heroine of the book, Winnie Foster, discovers the secret of the Tuck family—the Spring. Anyone who drinks from this spring, as the Tucks did, will become immortal and invincible. Jesse Tuck, who is actually 104 years old but remains in his seventeen year-old body, stops Winnie from drinking the spring and tells her a secret. He tells her that everyone around him, except his family, grows old and dies, while he keeps living at the same age. He cannot marry or have children, cannot stay in one place for too long out of fear that others will uncover his secret. Such a life is repeated tediously each day, with no friends, no neighbors, no fixed residence, no job, and not even the day of death. What, then, is the meaning of staying alive anyway? This is the question that the novel asks. It has a beautiful ending. Winnie sees a toad threatened by a dog. She snatches up the toad and pours the water from Jesse's bottle (which is the last spring water Winnie has) over it. Decades later, The Tucks return to the original place. They find Winnie’s grave and learn that she died two years ago. They feel proud of her. In fact, the book suggests that that spring of immortality is our greed. We always think that we have the ability to satisfy our greed by gaining more, but what we cannot clearly see is that as we have more, our greed keeps growing until we can no longer satisfy it and are eventually swallowed by it.

Thus, immortality is a curse caused by people’s voracious desire, isn’t it? Yes—but no. As a matter of fact, it depends on how one defines immortality.

From my perspective, people who are immortal don’t need to biologically stay alive forever. What truly is the most central fact is to live in the world’s memory permanently.

Nothing can stop physical death. You would realize this if you had seen the painting The Ambassadors (1533 by Hans Holbein the Younger). Indulge in noting every object and feature in the picture. They all strongly display the wealth, the power, and the knowledge that the two central men in the painting possess—except for the distorted skull in the bottom-center of the composition. What is this horrific thing for? A Memento mori, which is an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death (Wikipedia), could be the answer to this question. The skull is reminding us that no matter whether you own enormous wealth and knowledge, or you are powerful and stand on top of common people, you are just a tiny ant trying to crawling out of a tsunami hurtling down from the sky. Death is eternally inevitable.

How on earth could I become immortal if death will eventually slide to my side? How come immortality is bliss?

As I have said, immortality is in fact an unquenchable thirst, a desire forever unfulfilled. Physical death is not only unavoidable, but preferable to an unending physical life. Yet, we might consider whether our lives will be destroyed by death’s scythe, or whether death would actually give us a new way to live: a way to live in others’ hearts, in words and melodies, in glorious feats, and by leaving indelible marks on this world to which we never come twice.

This understanding of the second life of memory is a perennial theme of literature. In fact, it is a central concern of The Epic of Gilgamesh, our oldest recorded work of literature. Likewise, it also appears in the great Romantic poem “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Gilgamesh said,

'What shall I do, O Utnapishtim,

where shall I go?

Already the thief in the night has hold of my limbs,

death inhabits my room;

wherever my foot rests,

there I find death.'

Gilgamesh, the son of Ninsun, lies in the tomb.

At the place of offerings he weighed the bread-offering,

at the place of libation he poured out the wine.

In those days the lord Gilgamesh departed,

the son of Ninsun,

the king,

peerless, without an equal among men,

who did not neglect Enlil his master.

O Gilgamesh, lord of Kullab,

Great is thy praise.” —The Epic of Gilgamesh

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.” —Ozymandias

In the end, legendary Gilgamesh puts bread and wine at the place of libation, and Ozymandias becomes indifferent to his works’ might. They are no longer afraid of losing their earthly power and renown, they fear fading away in the endless stream of history instead.

Fortunately, both Gilgamesh and Ozymandias got the immortality they desired—living in world’s memory forever—since their miracles have been recorded by works that will be read and remembered by each generation. Being full of vigor, they are walking, talking, striving, and thriving in these undying scenes that are vividly changing inside people’s minds.

Thus, life and memory can endure through masterpieces. Something of a person’s particularity and uniqueness can survive in a great poem, as in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18:

“When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” —Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? William Shakespeare, c. 1609

Comparing lover to a summer’s day, the subject of the poem’s comely face and sunshiny smile float in my imagination. Nevertheless, in Shakespeare’s sonnet, never could the subject and summer be the same. A fair summer’s day would arise and vanish, living ardently but leaving bleakness behind. However, the beloved in Shakespeare’s monument remains forever young. All her curves and edges, her gorgeous smile, her lingering laughter would last forever.

So death is another kind of immortality.

What I feel are vitality, honor and blessedness in death.

I feel the love, the happiness, and the beauty of such immortality.

It’s just like an afterlife. If I could reach eternity in such an afterlife, would people love and search for me? If it will come true, why wouldn’t I crave such immortality, such bliss.

There are lines in a poem from my beloved poet Emily Dickinson, that encapsulate this altered relationship to death, this relationship that sees it not as an end but as a new beginning:

“Because I could not stop for death

He kindly stopped for me

The carriage held but just ourselves

And Immortality” —Emily Dickinson

In this poem, the author abandons the impression of fear and trembling before death, and elevates death to a lovely and even respectable image in a euphemistic way. She shows the different perspective of death, which is not horrific because we could live in the afterlife eternally (in the memory of others, in their hearts and minds, etc.).

Let me embrace beauteous death and the bliss of immortality.