Can You Really have Immortality?

No, but I’m going to hedge a bit and say - in a way.

While most people dream of immortality - living forever - 0bviously, it is impossible (in reality it is also undesirable, but that's a different topic). You can achieve a form of immortality through works, actions or deeds. But those things would need to be so outside of the norm that it is virtually impossible to make happen. Much like winning the billion dollar lottery. Even then, you would only be alive as an idea and you would not be part of the active conversation any longer.

The most famous of people right now will likely be forgotten within a generation.

At most, they will become a line in history - maybe. Even that history will disappear at some point. Much sooner than you’d expect. Take a moment and try to come up with famous people from the early to mid 1900s. My guess, depending on your age, there won’t be many, if any. How many from the late 1800s? Likely none. Go back another 50 years and, other then historical figures that relate to your cultural development (and these will be the lucky few who were chosen to be remembered), nothing.

With this thinking in mind, it becomes more important then ever to not waste energy on trying to achieve immortality by living in the future. The future does not care if you are there and there is nothing you can do to influence your existence in it. It is better to take what little time you have been given and focus your energies and efforts on what you can do right now.

I could go on about creating great things in society, or building wealth, status or power, but those have been done to death, and in all honesty don’t really matter.

What matters is people.

Those people who are around and a part of your life. Because it will be through people that you will be able to create a type of immortality. In the end, you may not be remembered as a person, but you can at least touch the world in some way that will matter to someone. This connection will then influence that person's interactions with others, which will go on and on.

Of course this cuts both ways - good and bad.

Depending on the kind and type of interactions you had, you will either have supported that person or damaged them. They in turn will end up passing those good or bad traits on to the next person.

What traits or actions do you want your legacy to reflect? In what manner will your immortality exist? Really, those are the questions that you need to answer.

Is your immortality going to be reflected through the positive actions and interactions you had with the people you cared about (or cared for you)? Or are your actions going to make those around you feel less joy, or experience fear, despair, or hate even more?

Will you leave the world better then when you were in it? Or make it worse?

Managing to infuse goodness, kindness, understanding, direction, hope, empathy and belief in self is the goal I believe matters most for a life. Doing this ensures immortality in the best way.

While I may never be recognized or remembered for these lessons or traits I modeled and upheld, I know they can make a difference right now and will flow out into the future.

A difference that can only grow in size and strength as they are passed on person by person.

Generation after generation.