Frieren talks about the life of the titular one-thousand-years old elf mage, starting the story right after defeating the major villain and returning from that ten-years old quest. Of course, after a while, the humans she accompanied die from old age — during one such funeral, she understands that she didn’t know them enough: ten years are an imperceptible amount of her elf lifespan, so she assumed she had more time than imagined. From this realization, she starts a new adventure with the goal of understanding humans and enjoy the little things in life, because not everything lasts forever. For that, I still have 2604 marbles left out of 3900.
I don’t fear death. At the heat death of our sun, imagine witnessing the end of our world, everything beloved to us, only to remain alive in the desolate emptiness of space: the curse of immortality. Losing our memories scares me far more than death or surviving a supernova.
In the fever dream of Everywhere At The End Of Time, The Caretaker (James Leyland Kirby) tries to describe what it may feel like to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and, eventually, escape from that nightmare by dying. Humans lived on this planet for millions of years, yet we record history since about a mere hundred-thousand-years ago — before that we call it “pre-history”. Reading the timeline on human evolution saddens me: in The Oldest View, Kane Pixels elaborates on what it means to create something meaningful and then slowly, collectively, forget it. What were the earlier humans doing? What about people during the second world war? How about their dreams? Everyone has a story to tell, but the history books have to compress it enough to pick the few bits to talk about. I don’t care about “leaving a mark” in this world, but consider: after my death, my friends and family may remember my story, but the world at large will not — the latter is full of such stories we don’t talk about and thus forget. It’s neither about achievements nor fame, but the struggles, the people we meet, and the memories we form. This really terrifies me, not death itself.
In the end, I wish to end up under a tree, possibly inside a Capsula Mundi. Less boring than a gravestone or an urn.