Peaceful Oni’s Library of Monstrosities: #2 The Monstrosity of Immortality
We have an odd fear of immortality, one that grows even odder when compared to our often more overwhelming fear of death. Immortality seems like something that would call to us, giving us eternal experience, growth, joy and love, and because of that the search for immortality is a common device in our stories. However immortality once granted is rarely positive, instead it often is a curse or tainted gift. We have come to see a sad monstrosity in immortality, one I wish to explore today.
Vampires are a great example of immortality as monstrous, as they are often granted their immunity to natural death by way of affliction or dangerous deals with dark beings. Through this they become creatures that live through the life of others, stealing their lifeblood to continue their own living. They are forced to live in shadow, the community of daylight a harmful, fearful thing, often leading to isolated and lonely lives. There often is a desire for interaction but because of their new predatory nature any relationship often becomes a toxic one, a wolf who desires more from the lamb. To live forever is to become a parasite, but more so to stagnate.
Even for the more sympathetic, the denial of death often becomes a morally degrading path that turns them or those they wish to perpetuate into something else. Once you become immortal you no longer are human, whether you become a monster, god, or something else entirely you have lost your connection with your world. You can not relate to men any longer for you have forgone a fear that shapes us, you begin to fail to grasp the beauty of art as you can no longer connect to our experience, any relationship can only end in pain as mortality strikes down those you fall for. You have become something to be awed not connected with.
Though immortality is not always a monstrous thing, as what we fear in it is our disconnection from others and the world around us. What if we were all immortal, then once again we could connect and love without the knowledge they are a blip of your life. Think of heaven or other afterlifes where the pains and sufferings of earth are bypassed. Life with those you love in a place of eternal safety, there is no fear of disconnection as you all live through it together. Though the sanitized look we often have of heaven of white robes, white clouds, and eternal, ceaseless worship creates an image of stagnation that can seem like it would turn into a hell of its own, the idea of life without ending that is ever evolving and changing as we experience, love and create seems a beautiful thing.
The monstrosity of immortality is then not the base gift it offers, but the side-effects that come with a limited application. To be immortal in a world of cycling life and death, is to be a separate entity from it, stagnate and unchanging, unable to connect with the feelings and expressions that make life beautiful. To become either a solitary deity or predatory parasite.
