Thoughts on immortality...

 

So it's John Lydon's sixtieth. Don't say it too loud, death may be listening.

Lemmy, Bowie, Snape, Wogan, Frank Finlay, that guy from Black, a drummer or two… when will it ever end? The answer to that is that it never will. Death respects no one regardless of status or how much the world loves them. Death is death, the ultimate certainty.

So if death is the answer then what is the question?

There is a big part of me (at least eleven twelfths) that believes that when you die you are gone; although I hope against hope that there really is something else. You may live on in the memories of friends and family for a while, but a few years down the line they will be gone too and with that the knowledge of who you once were goes with them. I know a little about my great grandfather, but nothing of his father really. My daughter knows nothing of her great grandfather having never met him and, other than he was a blacksmith who kept a cow, there really isn’t much more to say on the matter.

In reality there must have been more to him than that though. There had to be. He lived into his seventies, had three wives, lived through two world wars, saw winters and summers, raised children, watched as the world change from horse to car and balloon to plane, got ill, recovered, drank down the pub - all told he had a life of tens of thousands of days. But there is precious little of him remembered now.

Of course there are those fortunates who have achieved world recognition in one field or another and they could live on for ever. I say could, because this world is a fickle place and popularity does not guarantee immortality (just ask Edgar Wallace, and who will remember Peter Andre – and dare I say Sir Terry -  three hundred years from now?) But some will be remembered for as long as man is clinging on to this planet; Van Gogh, Chopin, Hitler, Charlie Chaplin, Rembrandt, Elvis perhaps – a few ones in a million. The rest of us will come and go though and leave little behind.

As I’ve already said, we all know where this ends for each of us and what that ultimate answer is.

And so dear friends why do I burden you with these somewhat bleak thoughts on this grey Monday morning? Two reasons really. One is simply to say, live your life any way you want and don’t worry about what others may think. Ultimately their views and opinions won’t keep you out of the grave.

Secondly to implore you to let people know you whilst you are alive in any way you can. Don’t hide away, speak up, speak out and engage. The more people that know you the better chance you have of living longer - at least figuratively speaking.

These days, more than ever, we all have some chance of a slight immortality; the internet has given us that. It may be a cheap immortality, but it’s better than the alternative - at least it is to my mind. What we say is out there on social media, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr and the rest, some say forever. That’s why I blog this rubbish. When I am gone this may still be here.

So if anyone were to stumble over me in the dark of an internet winter’s night they could get to know me if they wanted to. Of course they may not like me, but do I care? At least it gives me a chance.