Welcome back to this series on immortality and perfection! If you haven’t read the previous articles, check them out below:
Part 1: The Paradox of Perfection
Part 3: Swordsmanship & Perfection
Part 4: Alchemy & the Magnum Opus
In Part 4, we conceptually linked the attainment of perfection to the achievement of immortality, particularly within the topic of alchemy.
So far, this series of essays has been a winding path through many disparate topics connected by hidden threads. But it’s also an example of the kind of conceptual groundwork I do when crafting worlds and writing stories.
I’m a believer that fantasy is much richer when its world, narrative, and themes are all intertwined, and that means thinking about things on multiple levels. If you want a more focused example of that, you can take a look at my essays about Bloodborne!
So this essay series is about immortality and perfection. How do those topics tie into my storytelling and worldbuilding?
In my world, called OROBORO, the soul does not pass on to an afterlife upon death, which leaves a person’s ghost to wander the earth as its fractured memories slowly drive it toward madness. Since the prospect of suffering for eternity as a ghost is a bleak and frightening one, people in this world desperately seek out ways to stave off death, and the “holy grail” is to become immortal.
However, this desperate search for immortality, as well as the achievement of it, turns out to be profoundly destructive: those who uncover routes to immortality withhold the secret in order to enslave others, and those who actually achieve immortality find themselves slowly slipping into a similar madness to ghosts.
Now, in a fantasy world, the author makes up the rules. If I chose, I could make the process of obtaining immortality simple, like drinking from a Fountain of Youth. Likewise, I could craft a world where humans can live for thousands of years and remain generally the same in terms of personality and outlook.
But I feel that these approaches to immortality don’t do justice to human beings’ relationship to the eternal or really explore the fascinating facets of infinity that I just spent four articles outlining. In fact, I think that achieving immortality without adequately preparing oneself for it would be one of the most dangerous, harrowing mistakes one can make.
But why would immortality be so dangerous?
The Microcosm and Macrocosm
The first reason is the vastness that lies between the macrocosm and microcosm, two concepts we touched on in the previous Parts.
If you’ve ever been to a planetarium, you might have had a sense of vertigo and existential terror as you looked up at a vast field of stars and galaxies and realize that you, your life, and everything that will ever happen to you is infinitesimally small in the grand view of the cosmos.
Likewise, gazing through a microscope at your own skin and seeing the individual skin cells can cause you to realize that your body is not a single thing, but a vast network of tiny systems in a constant process of growing, dying, and regenerating that you have no control over. Suddenly, you may feel like a stranger in your own body.
If you need vivid examples of these two extremes, this video can help illustrate what I’m talking about:
The video’s journey between the two poles, from atomic to cosmic, illustrates the gulf that lies between them and within them.
If we consider the humans on the picnic blanket to be the “microcosm”, then the “macrocosm” would be the vast expanse of the cosmos. In this line of thinking, microcosm and macrocosm are concepts of space—size, volume, distance.
But the further one gets from the people on the picnic blanket, out to nebulae or the orbits of planets, the time needed to measure things grows larger—planets may take decades to orbit the sun, while some galaxies take millions of years to move an appreciable distance across the sky. In essence, the larger one’s perspective on space grows, the larger one’s perspective on time grows.
But what’s strange is that we could also treat the sub-atomic scale of the universe as another macrocosm—the distance between it and the people on the picnic blanket is similarly vast. At the sub-atomic level, the timescale needed to measure change is extremely small, since things happen extremely quickly, almost too fast to comprehend. So again, the change in one’s perspective on space requires a new perspective on time.
But as previously explored, life is full of hidden infinities, both smaller and larger, and once a person faces infinity, I imagine that they’ll start to see it everywhere, at all scales: in the slow process of erosion, the weathering of a brick building, or the melting of an ice cream cone.
This brings to mind some lines from William Blake:
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
I imagine that once a person’s view has been unmoored from the “human” perspective that all scales of time and space might seem overwhelmingly vast. As mentioned in Part 1, human perspective is generally geared toward familiar units of measurement: the level of magnification of our eyes, the colors we see, the units of time that divide a day, and so on. These perspectives allow us to function easily in the day to day lives we pursue.
But once a person gains immortality, this framework begins to erode because they begin to realize, even if unconsciously, that the human perspective is not privileged, and the universe’s scale far exceeds that perspective.
For example, a person who is faced with eternity may develop agoraphobia due to the knowledge that they are surrounded by unimaginably vast spaces, causing them to stay inside and become terrified of the outside world. Someone else may develop chronophobia, the fear of time, and begin to desperately record the events of the day in a diary due to “a sense of impending danger of loss and the accompanying desire to keep the memory of what happened.”
It’s interesting that, in real life, chronophobia appears more commonly among prisoners, who are forced to face vast expanses of time, both in the abstract and in their lived experience. For me, it’s easy to see how eternity might end up feeling like a prison. It brings to mind a quote from Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu:
“Time is an abyss, profound as a thousand nights…Centuries come and go… To be unable to grow old is terrible… Death is not the worst… Can you imagine enduring centuries, experiencing each day the same futilities…?”
The Mental Strain of Eternity
But in addition to dealing with the external reality of eternity, there is the internal experience of it. I imagine memory would be one of the main points of friction. For example, the sheer difference between a person’s memories of their childhood self and their conception of their current self (at 100, 200, or 300 years old) might seem so radical that the person no longer feels that they have any connection to that child, that their childhood memories are more like dreams, and that they have become a stranger to themselves.
I imagine that this feeling, of being divorced from one’s old self, can be an ongoing one, where an ever-moving horizon marks the point in an immortal’s memories where a past self ceases to be recognizable to the current self. Like the Ship of Theseus, an immortal may begin to wonder if there’s anything essential or unchanging within them that persists through all these iterations of their self.
Another point of friction, I think, would be emotion. The weight of a normal lifetime, with its own share of ambition, regret, heartache, joy, and terror already has the power to break some people. After exceeding that perceived “allotment” of life experience, I imagine the prospect of eternity will start to drain a person’s emotions.
For example, ennui or lethargy can result from the feeling that there is no urgency in life when there is no limit to one’s time, or the feeling that all things are transient and therefore not worth pursuing. Similarly, experiencing the highs and lows of life may result in the fading of novelty’s power to enliven a person, or the belief that all of humanity’s vagaries, from kindness to cruelty, are tiresome and only serve to torment the immortal.
Finally, there is the possibility of catatonia, where a person’s mind simply shuts down under the weight of eternity. It reminds me of Douglas Adams’ description of the Total Perspective Vortex in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
“…into one end he plugged the whole of reality…and into the other end he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it. To Trin Tragula’s horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.”
As silly as Douglas Adams can be, he touches on something important here: when the operations of your life and self are built upon a limited view of both, reality itself becomes something destructive.
Overall, I think even if a person’s body and brain remains healthy and free from degeneration, their imagination, memory, and general mindset will likely begin to strain under the weight of everything they experience until everything feels as if it’s the same: transient, empty, and painful. At worst, I imagine they may devolve into psychosis or a catatonic state.
This may not be the same for every person, but I think it’d be a common outcome for a person who expects their immortal life to continue in the same way as their old one.
The Path to Divine Madness
On the other hand, seeing and experiencing life (and one’s own mind) might lead a person to begin uncovering some of the threads that this series touches on: the unity of things, the macrocosm and microcosm, paradoxes, etc. But without preparation, these glimpses of enlightenment may instead become terrifying or maddening.
For example, Alan Watts has a lecture that describes grasping the realization that the self does not arise from nothing—it is the consequence of an unbroken chain of cause and effect that intersects with everything else. This is a major insight, but it is easy for this insight to veer into madness, according to Watts:
…you would get a very strange feeling, which at first might frighten you…you would not be quite sure how to interpret it. You might feel that you yourself were doing everything else that’s happening. That would be one way of feeling. The other way of feeling it would be that you are doing nothing at all…And you would feel completely passive, like a puppet on the end of strings. Although on the other hand, if you got the feeling that you were doing it all, you would feel like God Almighty…And one has to be very careful about this feeling, because it’s enormously easy to misinterpret. Either as being omnipotent, being God in the personal, literal sense. Or as being helpless and merely driven.
What Alan Watts is describing above is really confusion over the relationship between the microcosm (self) and the macrocosm (universe): when a person realizes the unity of the two, but does not have the preparation to understand it, the result is a warped view of both.
Another example might be Colonel Kurtz’s epiphany in Apocalypse Now:
“I remember when I was with Special Forces…We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying…We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile….And then I realized…like I was shot with a…a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God…the genius of that…The will to do that…You have to have men who are moral… and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling… without passion… without judgment…without judgment. Because it’s judgment that defeats us.”
Kurtz’s mention of a “diamond bullet” resembles the “diamond thunderbolt” of Vajrayana, but the “enlightenment” he receives is twisted: Kurtz recognizes the dual natures of humanity, which has the capacity for both mercy and cruelty, but his imperatives as a soldier have forced him into a paradox: how can he be someone with the capacity for love, mercy, and kindness, yet do what is necessary to fulfill his mission, which entails ruthlessness and destruction of his fellow humans?
He decides that the only way to transcend this duality is through amorality—to view the world not through the lens of right and wrong, but of what is necessary (whatever that may be). Though Kurtz is not facing eternity or the infinite, his epiphany echoes the realization of the self-other duality that drove Miyamoto Musashi to realize that conflict between people is unnecessary, since all things are connected in a grand web of existence…but Kurtz instead decides that bloodshed and horrors are necessities.
Immortality as a Magnifier of Flaws
However, this brings us to a key question: if facing infinity is a recipe for madness and existential horror, why does Miyamoto Musashi’s encounter with the infinite free his mind rather than annihilating it?
Although he might not have realized it at the time, Musashi had been preparing himself to face the enormity of infinity by dedicating himself to reaching perfection in a way that was intelligible to him (swordsmanship). As the narrative of Vagabond continues, Musashi continues to develop his understanding of infinity, perfection, and self-cultivation, partly guided by the philosophy of Zen Buddhism.
I don’t think the experience of confronting infinity or eternity is an inherently destructive one—in my view, it reveals the depth and breadth of reality, which in turn reveals how deluded, flawed, and limited our “selves” are—if you are driven by ambition or prestige, you end up becoming like Ozymandias and realizing the futility of egotism. If you are driven by the thrill of novelty and pleasure, you end up becoming Tantalus, realizing that there is a hole in yourself that can’t be filled with external things.
I think immortality performs a kind of transmutation on one’s life, turning everything into a reminder of what is imperfect with you. It can seem like torture, but really, the only thing torturing you is you.
There’s a quote from Jacob’s Ladder that expresses a similar idea:
“The only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won’t let go of your life: your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away, but they’re not punishing you, they’re freeing your soul. If you’re frightened of dying and you’re holding on, you’ll see devils tearing your life away. If you’ve made your peace, then the devils are really angels freeing you from the earth. It’s just a matter of how you look at it, that’s all.”
This is what I meant in Part 1 when I said “The main reason eternal life terrifies me is because I am not perfect.”
Conclusion
To sum up, I believe the human experience of immortality would require a person to face both eternity (ie, endless time) and infinity (ie, endless space), which compose a reality whose horizons are far broader than the normal human mind can deal with, since the human mind is accustomed to a myopic view that is best suited to dealing with day-to-day life and limited lifespans.
This myopia permeates the whole human experience—in general, humans view themselves as inherently separate from others and the world at large, they articulate things in thoughts and language in terms of duality, and they come to believe that the “human” scale of things is the only important perspective.
These illusions and misapprehensions create a false view of the self that is exposed and eroded when facing eternity. Eternity may seem like a destructive force, but it’s actually a revelatory one. However, when the mind is not willing to admit the truth, it’s the formula for a psychotic break
However, philosophies like hermetic alchemy and Zen Buddhism offer ways for a person to prepare themselves for eternity and infinity. This inner journey to perfect the self eventually transforms their view of the universe and allows them to fully integrate it. Rather than being a stone in the rushing river of eternity, they become part of that river.
What I’m describing isn’t new—you’ll find parallels and echoes of these ideas in mystical traditions, religions, and philosophies from across history.
I’ve touched briefly on how I tie these ideas into worldbuilding and storytelling, but in Part 6, I’m going to illustrate that in more detail!
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