Transcribe
Translate
Southern Star, v. 1, issue 3, August 1941
Page 13
More information
digital collection
archival collection guide
transcription tips
Life Everlasting SOUTHERN STAR Page 12 And CON says: The question has been posed to me: Which would you take if you were given the unalterable choice of eternal life or an ordinary span of existence? To begin with let me personalize my arguments by applying them to YOU. For YOUR personal contentment would be that involved if everlasting life were yours. Happiness, it is almost universally agreed is the goal of mankind -- better one hour of joy than a lifetime of sorrow, a lifetime of unrest, a lifetime of misery. That is my point and that alone will I attempt to amplify, for if you agree with me on this initial premise, and if I can prove that eternal life can bring only sorrow, then I have admirably defended my judgement in deciding that an ordinary span of life is most certainly to be preferred over immortality. For what if that immortality was a curse -- a curse more permanent and enduring than chains or the earth itself? Life everlasting would be just that -- a fixed and unalterable agony of living susceptible not even at its worse to suicide. Before launching into my reasons for believing this, allow me to digress momentarily to briefly consider the one main joy I could find in immortality. As one who sincerely believes in the future greatness of the human race, I would most certainly think it worthwhile to be privileged a glimpse into the wonders of the coming centuries, but only a glimpse. I should not enjoy the prospect of those wonders becoming as stale and usual to me as other commonplace actualities of today, and I am sure that the mind of man must sometimes lose the freshness, the viewpoint of evernewness, which for perhaps a century or so would greet every marvel and every accomplishment with amazed acclaim -- but that would inevitably become accustomed to the very routine of invention and civilized progress. Nor would I enjoy living until that time when the world meets its destined doom. I would not be able, with a sound mind, to witness the death struggle of man in submergence, the slow dying of the forces of life, the sure march of glaciers over a dead frozen world, the sheer loneliness of an existence without companionship save the glittering stars or the beckoning beams from yet other distant planets evolving from the furnace of creation. But what if I could go from world to world, you ask, living on each, savoring each new civilization and deserting that civilization when conditions become untenable for supporting life other than myself? Have you not heard of the Wandering Jew? Would I be any happier than he, if I were eternally driven, homeless, from world to world, with only a nostalgic and ineradicable memory to remind me of the once-green hills and valleys, the shining seas and scented air, of Earth -- my Earth. Disregarding the purely emotional reaction to the thought of existing forever and ever, there is the material question of adaptability. Could a person keep up, mentally, with future men -- men of over 500 years hence? Scientists uniformly agree that the race is still evolving. If so, the man of today, if allowed to live until the 27th century, might be as different from those about him, physically and mentally, as the Neanderthal man is different from today's man. The time need not be too far distant to warrant such a gulf in mere appearance, because with the rapid strides of medicine and physical culture men changes now even in generations. Five centuries would bring far greater changes than increased life spans, freedom from allergies and disease, and corresponding physical changes in body measurements such as height and weight. Five centuries would bring mental changes. The capacity of genius is limited. Learning reaches a blank wall or a point beyond which it
Saving...
prev
next
Life Everlasting SOUTHERN STAR Page 12 And CON says: The question has been posed to me: Which would you take if you were given the unalterable choice of eternal life or an ordinary span of existence? To begin with let me personalize my arguments by applying them to YOU. For YOUR personal contentment would be that involved if everlasting life were yours. Happiness, it is almost universally agreed is the goal of mankind -- better one hour of joy than a lifetime of sorrow, a lifetime of unrest, a lifetime of misery. That is my point and that alone will I attempt to amplify, for if you agree with me on this initial premise, and if I can prove that eternal life can bring only sorrow, then I have admirably defended my judgement in deciding that an ordinary span of life is most certainly to be preferred over immortality. For what if that immortality was a curse -- a curse more permanent and enduring than chains or the earth itself? Life everlasting would be just that -- a fixed and unalterable agony of living susceptible not even at its worse to suicide. Before launching into my reasons for believing this, allow me to digress momentarily to briefly consider the one main joy I could find in immortality. As one who sincerely believes in the future greatness of the human race, I would most certainly think it worthwhile to be privileged a glimpse into the wonders of the coming centuries, but only a glimpse. I should not enjoy the prospect of those wonders becoming as stale and usual to me as other commonplace actualities of today, and I am sure that the mind of man must sometimes lose the freshness, the viewpoint of evernewness, which for perhaps a century or so would greet every marvel and every accomplishment with amazed acclaim -- but that would inevitably become accustomed to the very routine of invention and civilized progress. Nor would I enjoy living until that time when the world meets its destined doom. I would not be able, with a sound mind, to witness the death struggle of man in submergence, the slow dying of the forces of life, the sure march of glaciers over a dead frozen world, the sheer loneliness of an existence without companionship save the glittering stars or the beckoning beams from yet other distant planets evolving from the furnace of creation. But what if I could go from world to world, you ask, living on each, savoring each new civilization and deserting that civilization when conditions become untenable for supporting life other than myself? Have you not heard of the Wandering Jew? Would I be any happier than he, if I were eternally driven, homeless, from world to world, with only a nostalgic and ineradicable memory to remind me of the once-green hills and valleys, the shining seas and scented air, of Earth -- my Earth. Disregarding the purely emotional reaction to the thought of existing forever and ever, there is the material question of adaptability. Could a person keep up, mentally, with future men -- men of over 500 years hence? Scientists uniformly agree that the race is still evolving. If so, the man of today, if allowed to live until the 27th century, might be as different from those about him, physically and mentally, as the Neanderthal man is different from today's man. The time need not be too far distant to warrant such a gulf in mere appearance, because with the rapid strides of medicine and physical culture men changes now even in generations. Five centuries would bring far greater changes than increased life spans, freedom from allergies and disease, and corresponding physical changes in body measurements such as height and weight. Five centuries would bring mental changes. The capacity of genius is limited. Learning reaches a blank wall or a point beyond which it
Hevelin Fanzines
sidebar
