Living forever

Thanatos describes the pain of being immortal and why we humans should never strive for it.

Have you ever thought you'd like to live forever?. To see the world change and transcend time?. It sounds like a great prospect to a lot of people: become a walking history book and be witness, maybe even part, of the great changes in mankind and the planet.

Well, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but that's not slightly as fun as you think it is. Who the hell do you think you are?, you may ask, and I answer: I'm Thanatos, the god of death. I'm as old as the stars and Apollos' servant since before time. I've seen civilizations rise and fall, animal species appear out of nowhere and disappear just as fast; I've seen what you call "great wars" unfold in front of my eyes like a badly thought out lie.

I've existed for millennia, you could say that forever, and please don't turn deaf ears to what I'm telling you: living eternally is "dull" (I hope that's enough emphasis). Of course it was interesting at first. Witnessing the creation of animals and understanding their disappearance, appreciating the birth of humans and their confusion trying to rationalize the acts of Gods in their every day life. Everything seemed like an adventure but sadly, just like putting a foot after the other must seem trivial to you after years of doing it once and again, things lose their glow. Even our influence is no longer appreciated, you confuse our work with science, alchemy, magic or whatever other name you think fashionable. 

Things don't catch my eye anymore, years go by in the blink of an eye and centuries fly past me in seconds. I have nothing new to learn and you are no longer interesting, I think I've done everything I wanted with my toys (in case you didn't know, that's what you are to us: toys) and now you can spend a long time hidden away in a box without me even remembering you. I know I have a job to do and I can brag that I'm pretty good at it. You may fight my brothers' power every once in a while -I read somewhere about a technique you came up with where you sleep just a few hours a day and pills that keep you awake for weeks- but you're nowhere close to doing something about my dark embrace. Besides, Moiras are very demanding and I don't even want to imagine my boss' wrath if I ever mess up.

But I'm rambling. What I want you to understand is that eternal life is, in one word, boring. There's a finite number of things to do and that number grows smaller if you filter the things you actually want to do. Besides, if you live with other beings forever, I promise you that no matter how good you get along in the beginning, after a few millennia even the way they breathe will annoy you. If you don't believe me, just try spending a few weeks with Hestia and her obsession with cleaning, with Dyionisus and his wine-ridden breath or Aphrodite, who seems incapable of finishing a sentence without reaching orgasm.

I advice you to seize your short life, as it's the best gift we've ever given you. Get surprised every day, travel all you can and never go to sleep without learning something new. Your world, at least to me, is minuscule, but to you it's a gigantic amusement park. There's millions of things to do, we filled it with wonderful places for you to enjoy and make your eyes shine every day, so when the time comes I go take you to Hades' reign, you go with no regrets. To you, seconds are precious and not one should escape. Read a good book, write a not so good one. Become an expert in a subject and then start from scratch on something new. Fall in love with the wrong person, or with the right person and screw up the relationship. Make good friends, get drunk and dive into a fist fight. Dance, scream, sing and enjoy. Your world is big and your life is short, I envy you like you can't imagine.

Do all you can and enjoy it thoroughly because I assure you that, sooner than you think, we'll be having this conversation face to face. 

Author's Note

Please tell me about grammatic or orthographic errors, as English isn't my first language. I'd also like some feedback on the flow since I've been having some issues with it in my latest essays.
Hope you enjoy it!

Reviews

[Dearantlers]

Um, quick question. What are orthographic errors? I'm only in eigth grade, so that's a wee bit to big of a word for me. This is a really interesting story. It being from the eye of an immortal who works for the ancient gods is a new way for me, and I rather liked it. It's pretty good.