The Blog Post That Will Not Last Forever

In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim replies to Gilgamesh’s search for eternal life with the brutal fact that “there is no permanence” (106). Yet Gilgamesh does not want to accept this answer; he still attempts to earn immortality through staying awake for seven days and still goes to great lengths to obtain a magical, age-reversing plant. Gilgamesh, like all human beings, struggles with the ideas of impermanence and death. These ideas are difficult to accept (both for Gilgamesh and for all humanity) because if one truly accepts that nothing is permanent or lasting, what motivation is there to keep living and trying to make one’s mark in this world? How do human beings cope with mortality on a daily basis, allowing them to get up every day and continue with their lives?

Human beings’ ability to handle impermanence can take two forms: we can either attempt to deny our fate and create a false sense of permanence, or we can accept natural mortality and enjoy life by living in the moment.

In today’s world, examples of human attempts to ignore mortality are everywhere, as people try to deny and even defy aging with the help of new medical procedures to prolong human life or make people seem younger. However, the results of such attempts are never permanent, and often seem very unnatural. Plastic surgery, for example, has the ability to lessen the wrinkles and sagging that are a normal part of aging; yet, wrinkled or not, we all must die eventually.

Oftentimes, even those who come to accept individual mortality deny the ultimate mortality of the human race and, essentially, everything. Such people understand that they cannot preserve their physical life forever but they attempt to preserve their memory by leaving some sort of legacy when they die. This legacy can take the form of children who will carry on their parents’ name and memory, or a building, monument, piece of art, or noteworthy deed which will ensure that its creator’s name is remembered. However, like the people who create them, such legacies are ultimately mortal. The futility of human beings’ attempts to establish permanent buildings, bridges, and cities is shown every time other human or natural forces destroy them. War, earthquakes, and flooding can destroy even the most well-built human edifices, which is not really surprising, as even mountains are subject to change. Such attempts to make a lasting mark suggest human beings’ inability to truly understand the concept of eternity. Forever is very different from a long time. If, in America, we believe that our country is old for having lasted over two hundred years, we should consider that the Epic of Gilgamesh has been around for thousands of years, the earth for billions, and the universe for much longer. In the grand scheme of things, therefore, nothing one person or even all of humanity does will truly have an effect; attempting to leave behind a lasting legacy is, therefore, another form of denying mortality.

In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh is initially unconcerned with mortality, mainly because he has not needed to consider it; he is depicted as a brave warrior and adventure-seeker who believes himself to be unbeatable in combat. Even when warned in a dream that his fate is to be a king but not an immortal, Gilgamesh does not express concern regarding the end of his life; on the contrary, he proposes an adventure (battling Humbaba) that will ensure his fame for years to come but involves a great deal of physical risk: “I will set up my name in the place where the names of famous men are written, and where no man’s name is written yet I will raise a monument to the gods” (70).

Gilgamesh’s desire to make his name famous reflects the basic human desire to avoid the fact of physical mortality through a legacy, but as Gilgamesh discovers, such an attempt does not reconcile him to his own mortality, which he still must come to terms with after Enkidu’s death.

The only way for human beings to truly accept mortality is to stop trying to attain
permanence and accept that ultimately they (and all that they accomplish) will disappear. This acceptance is very hard because for some, it seems to take away all meaning from life. What then provides us with a reason to live and prevents us from becoming cynical or apathetic? We as human beings must realize that though what we do will not have a permanent effect, we can still enjoy what time we have by “living in the moment.” Though it sounds cliché, this ability to enjoy life as it happens, rather than always searching for permanence, is the key to a happy and meaningful life because it is a reasonable goal. Those who make an effort to experience life as much as possible, enjoy the world around them, and improve themselves will be able to come to terms with mortality and die knowing that while what they did in their life will not last forever, it has lasted long enough to give their life meaning. A literary example of a character declaring his intention to enjoy life until he dies comes from Joseph Conrad’s The Nigger of the Narcissus, in which a man joins the crew of a ship, knowing that he is dying and is at times unable to fulfill his duties. When asked why he bothered to join under such circumstances, he replies, “I must live till I die—mustn’t I?”

For Gilgamesh, the transition from denial of mortality to acceptance is seen after a snake takes from him a magical plant that contains the power to make the elderly young again. Gilgamesh has endured a long and difficult journey to obtain immortality; he does not want to give up his search easily. When the snake takes the plant, he sits down and cries: “Was it for this that I toiled with my hands, is it for this I have wrung out my heart’s blood? For myself I have gained nothing; not I, but the beast of the earth has joy of it now” (117). Yet at this point in time, Gilgamesh finally gains acceptance of his mortality and sees that he truly is not meant to be immortal, saying, “I found a sign and now I have lost it. Let us leave the boat on the bank and go” (117). Here is where we see Gilgamesh finally abandon his quest for immortality and decide to return home, signifying his realization that it is best for him to go back to his kingdom. Incidentally, Gilgamesh obtains a sort of immortality when he has his story engraved on a stone. Though the story of Gilgamesh will not and cannot last forever, it has survived thousands of years longer than any human being could hope to live. Essentially, Gilgamesh’s acceptance of his mortality leads to the creation of his enduring legacy because had he obtained eternal life like Utnapishtim, he would most likely live in obscurity and never have his story written down.

Human beings have also devised a third way of dealing with impermanence, both creating a sense of eternalness and also accepting mortality through a belief in some sort of spiritual afterlife. This religious belief accepts that the body of a human being will ultimately die, but finds a loophole in mortality by saying that the spirit can live eternally in an afterlife, which can take the form of a Christian heaven and hell, the Egyptian afterlife, or many other similar concepts. This idea is not dealt with in Gilgamesh, as the Mesopotamians generally did not exhibit a particularly strong belief in an afterlife, but is still an important factor to consider, as it is yet another means for human beings to cope with a lack of permanence and give meaning to their lives.

Gilgamesh’s journey from denial of mortality to acceptance of the lack of permanence is a journey that all human beings must face. We are all confronted with the total lack of permanence in this world, and have different ways of trying to deal with this impermanence. Some people (ineffectually) attempt to deny impermanence, while those who learn to accept mortality find meaning in life through living in the moment.

On Heroes

The idea of a hero is everywhere, from modern literature and movies to ancient mythology, spanning thousands of years and appearing in some form in every culture. But what exactly is a hero? Why are heroes so prevalent, and what would happen to a society without them?

Because heroes appear in different forms in nearly every society, there is no universal description of a “hero”. Heroes can be real people or fictitious characters. Though they traditionally act unselfishly for the greater good, heroes can also act primarily out of self-interest, and if the end result benefits society, a hero’s misdeeds are very frequently overlooked. While some heroes are violent, resorting to killing, others are more peaceful and inclined to rely on their intelligence when faced with a challenge. One society’s hero may even be another society’s worst enemy, as in the case of present-day terrorists. To extremist groups, suicide bombers are held up as models of courage and devotion to a cause, while to others, they are perceived as a source of evil. A hero, therefore, can only be defined in broad terms, as a person who faces a challenge of some sort (either a physical fight or an internal conflict) and triumphs, upholding his or her society’s ideals and serving as a role model to others. Heroes generally have some special trait that sets them apart from the rest of society—perhaps this trait is outstanding courage, great intellectual prowess, superhuman strength, or some sort of supernatural power. Yet heroes should not be too distant from the society that esteems them, or they lose their grip on the common man—the hero should be someone to whom everyone within that society can relate at least a little bit, and someone who everyone wishes to emulate.

The flexibility of the definition of a hero means that heroes will always be relevant; a society never outgrows its concept of a hero; rather, it is continually adapting that concept to fit contemporary problems. For this reason, today’s heroes and superheroes battle aliens, terrorists, and drug lords rather than an oppressive social system or the wrath of the gods.

In many cultures, the most prominent heroes are men, yet this does not mean that women are not or cannot be heroes. Because heroes are very much the creations of the societies that look up to them, they are direct reflections of the beliefs of their society, mirroring universally respected ideals rather than striking controversy. In the past, and even to some extent in the present, society is male-dominated. Families, governments, schools, and armies were (and still are) often run by men, while women who tried to pursue an unconventional lifestyle, rather than keeping house and raising children, were scorned by society. These circumstances made it nearly impossible for societies to recognize women as heroes or even strong characters, but as society has begun to show women the respect they are due, female heroes are gradually becoming more common in literature, movies, and all other forms of media.

Over thousands of years, the conflicts that heroes face and the manner in which they overcome them have changed significantly, yet the basic concept of the hero has remained. This is due to a deeply-rooted desire in human beings to have before them an example of strength and courage. The hero fills this need and also provides a sense of hope—if the hero can overcome adversity, then there is hope for the rest of society. A society without heroes, therefore, is often a society lacking a medium through which it can face adversity. Yet such societies are not doomed. Human beings are still capable of meeting new challenges, even without the outside help of heroes. In this sense, heroes act as society’s safety blankets—they are not necessary, but they provide a greatly desired sense of security, and thus are an almost inseparable part of the human experience.