The Human Symphony

The fight against mortality is a fight that humanity has had for a long time. We have developed religions to console ourselves with an afterlife. We have developed medicine to cure our fatal diseases. We have developed lifestyles to prolong our lives. However, there is one way that we live forever, because death always comes out our bodies. They break down, wither and fall apart. They become unusable and eventually shut down. Once this happens, they decay and birth to new life but the original life force is gone. This is you. The life forces that will one day disappear. It will descend or ascend to a place that no one has ever come back to tell the tale. Some has claimed but we will never know unless we go there.

From the story of Gilgamesh, he sought to overcome death and devised a plan to go the depths of hell and find the tree of life to cure himself. However, all these things never worked. In reflection of his failed attempts, he realised that the best possible way to secure his immortality in a morbid world, was to ensure that his name would be remembered for generations to come. In doing so, he chose to write his story.

The fact that I remember Gilgamesh, centuries since his death, is a testament to his immortality. In spirit, he is still with us to date. He walks with us in spirit because his words echo through the course of time. They are ripples in the pond of time, the fabric of existence. We remember his words and act on his lessons. We feel his dread but also his hope and audaciousness to combat death, the unbeatable foe. By writing and doing great deeds, we can secure our place in time and as people do things, they remember our names and act in our name. This is the best possible immortality for a mortal and fragile man. In this cold and dark world, there is hope in knowing that you can attempt to fight an unbeatable foe with a tool it has tried so many times to kill.

The story of Gilgamesh has traverse a lot distance in time. It is said that his story was way before the flood and it was after the story of Adam and Eve. We read the Bible like some kind of fantasy text or factual account that we read at face value. We don't question that it may be true but riddled in mystery and lore that is hard for us to comprehend and even for the writers to put into words. They would past these stories from one mind to another through speech, until they came up with writing to store this knowledge. However, a lot of knowledge and context was lost. These writings were protected by groups of people, who also don't understand the very writings and see it as either fiction or factual at face-value. I say, that these books are factual but with mystery written in their very wording and only require context and foresight to see. It requires the attentive and open mind. The mind chosen by circumstance. I believe that to be chosen by circumstance is the greatest honour. It means that something chose you, it looks random and may be, but it is not. It prepared you for that moment. It was written in a way that we don't understand.

Even with all the trials and tribulations, the tales of Gilgamesh will live on. In this account, I conclude that for a man to live forever, he must live a legacy that lasts generations, centuries and even millenia. This is true victory and a middle finger in the face of death. It cannot take us all if we all put our best foot forward. May the human race live on because it carries all the tales of the people who sacrificed to push it forward. We are all part of this story, all of us, contributing a page to this long story. A great and harmonious story that hums. In the moment, it feels chaotic and painful, like all things have to be pushed into place and for a beat to rhyme. But in the grand scheme of things, it is a beautiful symphony. A tale to immerse in and a journey to be a path of. It is a pleasure to be part of this great journey. Just like Steve Jobs or Henry Ford who had defined the way we communicate with smartphones and how we work with the weekdays and weekends, these men have shown that they can live forever when everyone echoes the thoughts and decisions they made without even realising it. It is progress, the human story, the human symphony.