“If you could have any superpower, what would it be?”

“What do you want most?”

“What would you wish for, if it could be anything?”

They’re common questions, really. Nice ice breakers used in classrooms or parties. Sometimes the answers aren’t very well thought out, but other people spend several moments contemplating their response. Even among those deeper thinkers, though, one reply in particular appears disturbingly often: immortality.

Most people consider this an option only because they fear death. Immortality, though, offers much more to fear than that does. Regardless of what you believe, the unknown is almost certainly better than how I’m trapped.

Sure, the idea is a fantastic one: travel the world, do anything you want, and you never have to fear anything. Go ahead and skydive, since even if your parachute fails, you’ll walk away unscathed. Go ahead and climb Mt. Everest, the air and the cold won’t impact you at all. And it is great, at least the first few decades. That sense of security is intoxicating, after all. It’s human nature. That is, until the novelty wears off, and the harsh reality of your “superpower” comes crashing down around you.

Eventually, you come to realize just how finite everything is in this world (except for you, of course). There’s only so many sights to see, only so many things to do, only so many things that can last. You have no friends. No family. No one ever thinks of that, do they? You get to watch the death of not just your parents, but your brothers, cousins, and even your own children if you decide to have them. You can’t ever fall in love, because just a sliver of your existence is their entire lifetime. There’s no point in having pets or anybody else around to keep you company. Towns, cities, and even larger political bodies don’t last as long as you do, regardless of how grand they might be in the moment. It’s happened time and time again… even the mightiest empires fall, so who’s to say where I currently live will still exist in a century or two? 

After a while, I realized that memories fade, too. My physical body may be unchanging, but the same doesn’t go for my mind. Memories of my parents, my hometown, and even my original name… they evade me more and more as time drags on. I’ve adopted so many names over the years, traveled to so many places, seen and done so much, that I can hardly remember the beginning of my life. Why do you think I didn’t introduce myself? Identity hardly means a thing to me anymore.

Forming new, lasting memories seems to be harder than anything else, though. Even monumental things start to seem trivial after seeing as much as I have. It creates even more of a feeling of isolation and disconnect, and that’s the craziest, most incomprehensible feeling I’ve ever known. How is it that I can feel truly and utterly alone in a world with seven billion people and counting? How is it that I can feel so disconnected from my own self, my own identity?

So, the next time you’re faced with any of those obnoxious, probably theoretical questions, please remember my words: nothing lasts forever. Absolutely nothing. How could you ever want to be the only thing in existence that actually does?