There’s a short story by a man named Jorge Luis Borges from Argentina, which tells of a soldier from Rome who drinks from a secret river that provides immortality. Over time the soldier realizes immortality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, that life without limits is life without significance. Eventually, he comes to understand that it’s death itself that gives meaning to life and so thus begins his search for an antidote to his immortality, which ends up being in a secret spring that restores both his mortality and ultimately, his peace.
Gaining immortality is definitely something that has fascinated me ever since I was a kid. I have watched countless science fiction and fantasy-based TV shows and films on the subject including “Forever”, “Highlander”, “Tuck Everlasting”, and “The Age of Adaline”. And now having turned 50 in 2022, I find the subject even more alluring. While I used to think if I ever found some elixir or some fountain of youth that could create immortality for me that I’d drink from it as quickly as I could, today I find myself rethinking that notion quite differently.
Truth be told, what I hope for now is to live another half century of life where I am focused on three things. Selfless giving, spreading love and joy around the planet, and spending every second of it growing old with just one person to love who I get to share my entire heart and soul with, who shares the same with me in return. And I believe that will happen. I truly do. But to think of doing this with someone I love that deeply who I’d eventually outlive, who I would endure having to watch wither away and die while I continue to go on, brings up a great despondency within me.
I don’t think I’d ever want to experience a love as deep as this leave this planet of existence while I continue to go on forever, only to repeat the cycle again eventually with another and another, watching love repeatedly turn to heartbreak, until life itself becomes lonely and pointless.
On some level, this is precisely how I feel about what I did with the first half century of my life, as I made it pointless. I spent the first half of my life mostly pleasing myself, my carnal senses, fulfilling all my selfish desires, only to leave me feeling broken and alone time and time again. But through it all, I’ve learned one invaluable lesson.
What really matters in this world is not in attempting to remain youthful, trying to look immortal, or buying and consuming anything that makes you appear or feel temporarily better. What really matters is simply just being close to another’s heart and soul, in sharing love with them from the deepest of places, spending countless hours talking about life, and being close in a way that words just can’t describe.
Words for this type of love come from something Greater and are something I am only just coming to learn about now at my half-century mark in life. So, as I begin the next half century of my life, I find myself no longer interested in immorality or attempting to remain youthful through any of what this world has to offer to elongate life. I’m simply looking to share what I have left on this plane of existence with someone to age with, who wants to live life to its endless possibilities, embracing what matters most through it all, and that’s one thing and one thing only, it’s unconditional love, and it’s the only thing that matters to me anymore when it comes to accepting my mortality.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
