Thoughts on Immortality

Man has pretty much strived to find a way to live forever; either in this current state we call the real world, or in the potential for a life that begins after we pass beyond this mortal coil.

While I am usually up for a more than lively debate on matters of religion, spirituality, and the political, I'm going to attempt to refrain from the faith-based aspects of life after this life. And while I enjoy my sciences as well, I am also going to not speak on that facet of extending our life expectancy.

No being a philosopher in a philospohic mood (and having lost some dear family members within the last couple of months) I wish to ponder upon a form of immortality that we may all achieve if we so desire to work towards it.

It is an immortality that some have achieved already and are reknowned for it throughout much of the world. They survive on and on and on from generation to generation; quoted, referred to, their wisdom sought; their actions gleaned over for how to deal with the problems and issues that we face today.

Who are they? The figures in our history. Global, national, regional or local. They live on in the autobiographies, the biographies, the many quotes that are attributed to them. They survive because we seek answers to present issues and hope for future potentialities that they envisioned in the things they said and the actions they performed, and in the philosophies they believed and followed.

So how does this relate to you or I, the common individual? It is in the words and deeds of our lives in this here and now. If you were to give up the ghost tomorrow and face whatever comes/becomes of us when that occurs, how would you be remembered? How long would the memories of you affect others. But not just the memories, what of the lives that you touched as an unknown angel? In what ways did seething you did, said or expressed affected the life of another (hopefully for good, though here in a negative light we may also be recalled)?

This immortality of our life by the rembrance of others...either in direct recollection of us or in that off hand "I remember this person once...", that may pass for one to several generations.

While there are many points to wonder upon in regards to an afterlife; while the whole of what it is to be human may alter in ways that may make us less than what we are now should we become less likely to die if at all in this realm; the type of immortality of which I have spoken above, I think, is a truly admirable one. To make our mark upon the lives of others in such a way as to inspire, to encourage, to guide, shape and mould their lives...this is a worthy form of living far beyond the natural life expectancy of our kind, and truly is a hallmark of what being human is.