A Fresh New Reading of the Madness of Eternal Life!!

It's common knowledge that if you were to live forever, you’d eventually go mad. Simone De Beauvoir, Hawthorne, Oscar Wilde are just a few of the authors that have shown the folly and vanity of eternal life, though I’m sure there are more. But I, McFawn, think I have thought of a new reason, beyond the ones I’ve seen, for the madness of eternal life.
From my very brief look into eternal life, the common reasons for madness are these:
1.You become bored. After living out all your ambitions eventually, you’d run out of things to do.
2.You’d see too many loved ones die and that would eventually ruin your capacity for relationships. A human lifetime--fleeting enough as it is--would appear like a mere moment to you. So, you’d warn yourself “not to get too attached” to everyone you meet, much like a parent might give that warning to a child about a guppy.
3. You’d be alienated. Human ambitions and fears would look arbitrary and foolish. You’d sympathize with no one and no one could sympathize with you.

I agree with all these reasons. However, I think there is the new way of considering the madness of eternal life that might explain some madness in this life. Eternal life would really make you lose your mind because you’d no longer understand metaphors. Madness is the loss of metaphor-literacy. Before I get into the idea of “metaphor-illiteracy,” I’ve got to say a few things on metaphors themselves. All metaphors, in my thinking, are born of the unavoidable truths of human life. These can be broken down into simple dichotomies such as:

Life vs. Death---> (the arrow here indicates that all other metaphors are subsets of this one)
Nothing vs. Something
Power vs. Weakness
Inner vs. Outer
Knowing vs. Not-Knowing
I use metaphors to mean either literary metaphors--turns of phrase that use images etc to represent/explain something else. Or, metaphors can be a behavior-- a reply and representation of one of the above versus. A metaphor is basically a reaction to a truth in the from of symbol. But back to the person who lives forever, or "ForeverMan" (shorthand: FM). The worst part is that metaphors would lose meaning because the central truth of human existence would no longer apply. As I said in my “transience” post, life and death are so central that their tension gives birth to all sorts of metaphors and metaphorical actions. For example, the FM would have trouble even enjoying something like chocolate or sex. Chocolate is an indulgence, and a quick pleasure. The idea of indulging is a metaphorical response to death. To illustrate, someone might say “you only live once” as a justification for buying a particularly rich piece of cheesecake. To indulge in something that’s a little unhealthy, and is transient, is a way of saying: “I embrace the brevity of my existence, therefore I can take pleasure in other brevities, such as the quickly melting quality of this chocolate. Also, since my life is impossible to preserve, I will drop the absurd ruse of being “healthy” and eat this cheesecake, and--perhaps--I’ll request whip cream as well so the gesture won’t be mistaken. I know I’m going to die! No personal restraint will change that! Besides, what’s more “healthy” than a hard, level look at death in the form of sensory indulgence?” By this brief example, you can see both what metaphors refer to and why we need them. Most people would prefer the metaphorical act of eating chocolate to the explanation of its meaning. Although…what a wonderful absurdist comedy the world would be if we all talked like the above! But, metaphors are like jokes and therefore more powerful when they go unexplained, even to the person who uses them. It would certainly kill the exhilaration and abandon of eating cheesecake if you reminded yourself that you’re also giving an acknowledging nod to the Reaper in doing so.

But for our ForeverMan, the indulgence in treats is impossible. There is no indulgence without Death. The metaphorical life, as human life is, would elude him. Metaphors would not only lose power for the FM, they would become undetectable, unreadable, obscure. Metaphor would not exists for him. Everything would have a purely literal, and therefore maddening, existence. However feeble metaphors are, however little they do to actually illuminate or respond to any truth, they at least place life in a frame of meaning-making. They demonstrate the comforting and universal human desire to TRY to know. Human beings, regardless of how different from one another, all agree to try to know. That is our communion. But without death, the FM no longer recognizes human attempts at meaning. He sees no meaning, nor can imagine how one would try for it.

But I’m tired of explaining the FM’s plight. Let me end this post with a vivid description of the FM in an erotic situation. The FM has roamed the earth for 200 years now, so he is very early in his tenure of forever. He has sex occasionally, mostly trying to regain the excitement he once felt for it before he realized he would live forever. He has tried every sort of women, in hopes that variety would be thrilling. Oh, but its not. After fondling women of every size, age and hue, he realizes his mistake. The problem with infinite variety, he thinks, is that it’s infinite, and therefore reminds him of his own endlessness. He wants the singular, momentary experience of person, but every bit of flesh he sees seems to be part of an continuum of flesh and woman, each differing slightly but all part of a line-up that stretches on forever. This woman, with her mousey hair and hazel eyes and low voice is only a hair away from her variation, a slightly mousier, lower toned, brighter eyed woman. The FM is turned off by the thought. She is both an individual and expendable, but also a style of person that will reappear, slightly altered (just as a variation on the theme of Nathaniel Hawthorne appeared in this century as McFawn, who will no doubt be followed by a an Almost-McFawn. Poor McFawn thinks she’s so unique, but she’s really just casting of a person from a mold slightly chipped from overuse. She considers that slight flaw in her mold and making her “individuality“! HA!) They don’t break the mold on anyone, it just degrades. The FoveverMan is undressing as he thinks all this, and the woman sprawled on the bed looks to him like someone standing between two mirrors with her image repeating in all directions. Screw one, screwed ‘em all, he thinks and how he wishes that was a simple misogynist comment rather than a chilling metaphysical truth.

*P.S. Metaphor-illiteracy can also come from too strong a denial of death…even if you aren’t an FM. Beware. Nod to the Reaper every now and again or risk losing your basic hold on the human condition--METAPHOR! *