On Death and Immortality

We’ve lost some heroes lately. We lose people daily, thousands of them, but there’s something different, somewhat more vivid and personable about celebrity deaths. In the space of two weeks we’ve lost Lemmy, Bowie and Rickman. Each was a king in their respective field. But they’re gone now. Permanently. It’s a harsh realisation.

But death isn’t the ‘full stop’ it once was – both Elvis Presley and Kurt Cobain have earned more money post-death than during their lives, and coincidentally, both released a ‘new’ album last year. Death – especially in terms of musicians – often sees a shot of adrenaline introduced to the artist’s’ discography; I’m sure we all remember Michael Jackson’s rise back to Number 1 across the pop charts shortly after his passing. In much the same way, news websites have been flooded with stories about Lemmy and Bowie’s musical stories and Rickman’s acting legacy – Bowie’s final album is being analyzed and pored over completely afresh in light of his passing. Campaigning for Jacks and Coke to be known as ‘the Lemmy’ is reaching a fever pitch. I think I’ve heard the infamous ‘After all this time?’ ‘Always.’ lines from Harry Potter at least 50 times.

And while these brief explosions of public perception and attention are by their nature fleeting, they underline an important distinction – in our modern age, death isn’t the closing act it was for most of human history. We all know (at least in passing) about the fall of Rome, the construction of the pyramids and the great fire of London. We remember (via often crude and unscientific secondary sources) the great historical figures – Alexander the great, Shakespeare, etc – care to name an ordinary person living/dying during these historical periods? You can’t. These people aren’t remembered, logged, recorded. We have no collective registry of normal people prior to, at best, the early 1800s.

Compare this to modern times – since at worst the invention of the camera, at best the invention of the internet, we have digital (ergo indestructible) literal petabytes of photos, videos and audio – of not only celebrities, but the normal, the mundane. Feel free to open another tab and search YouTube for Lemmy, Bowie or Rickman – and there they are. As vibrant, full of life and enthused as always, and as they always shall be. Bowie’s peerless ‘Life on Mars?’ won’t disappear because of his untimely death. Rickman hasn’t vanished from our Harry Potter movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v–IqqusnNQ

Don’t get me wrong – dying, or death in general, sucks. It is fucking awful. But you’re going to do it. So am I. It’s tricky for us to accept, but you don’t have to, it’s going to happen. At some point within the next 100 years, you will stop existing. 500 years ago, once your body was gone, that’s it, you might as well have never existed. But you and I, reading this now, we are immortal. My kids will be able to see pictures of me from my early teens onwards. They’re all backed up, safe, online, everywhere. There are videos of me playing guitar and singing at Uni. There are photos of me deeply in love with girls I haven’t spoken to in years. They will be able to watch, photo by video, their father, grandfather, great-grandfather, grow up. Or if they’re anything like me, they’ll mostly be watching cats fall over.

This rang true for me personally last year, when my family dog, Daisy, passed away. As I’m sure anyone who has lost a pet can relate, it was horrific – perhaps the worst experience of my life. But I’ve got a folder on my computer, neatly organised and named, ‘Daisy <3’, in there, she’s running about, barking, chasing a ball, smiling at Christmas, and she always will be. Myself and my family took solace in the fact that so long as she is remembered, Daisy will always be with us.

So too will we all.

I don’t know anything about my family prior to my grandparents. We could have been kings of Germany for all I know, but my ancestors 200 years from now will (probably) be able to read this (hey ancestors, did I make it big in the end?). Oh, and they’ll still be able to watch the Harry Potter movies, blast Ace of Spades or question their sexuality watching Bowie do his thing. We are immortals, they, you, me.

Better not leave too many dick pics.