If You Are Immortal, Can You Be Brave?

As human beings, we are not well-equipped to be immortal. We need food, water, and air. Our biology seems to have a "use-by date" ingrained in our DNA, leading inevitably to our demise. We must also consider our psychological frailty; if a human being is isolated for a significant amount of time, say, two weeks, he begins to exhibit psychotic tendencies.

When I engineered Mathew Sella, the protagonist of my book, I had to ensure he did not need food, water, or air. He had to be ageless and indestructible (even our stone monuments crumble over the millennia) and remain sane after a few dozen million years. Only then do you truly have an immortal. I also made sure he possessed only moderate strength; a superhero would simply be too powerful and encroach on Marvel territory.

So, if one is truly immortal, can he still exhibit courage? The difficulty with courage is that most situations call for putting one’s life on the line. If you are indestructible, can you really be brave? Can you truly risk what you believe in when you cannot be killed or even physically hurt for your actions? Even "everyday courage"—dissenting from the officious herd—seems irrelevant. After all, such awkward situations shouldn't bother an immortal who will live long enough to attend everyone else’s funeral.

In light of this, courage must be redefined for the immortal. The one thing he can fear is containment. As civilizations roll by, millennia by millennia, some will accept an immortal, while others will consider him dangerous and seek to contain him. Assuming the immortal has only longevity and durability rather than superpowers, he could be scooped off the street and imprisoned at any moment. His life is not at risk, but his agency is. A permanent cage could be worse than death if it proves inescapable. (I presented such a situation in my book, but it would be reprehensible for an author to provide spoilers for his own work!)

Then again, there is the aforementioned prospect of attending every friend’s funeral. In certain extreme cases of dislike, I suppose this could be gratifying. But knowing everyone you meet is a "dying spark" creates a new type of courage peculiar to the immortal. How can one risk creating deep relationships knowing they must eventually die? Even though an immortal lives forever, the constant disappearance of beloved friends and lovers ensures that death remains at the forefront of the mind. When I designed Matt, I included a defense mechanism to diffuse some of the pain, but he still occasionally realizes the staggering scale of constant loss and consequently must summon the courage to continue building deep connections.

There is, though, a bright side. An immortal can function as the ultimate guardian of human truth. In a future where digital and physical records decay, a conscientious immortal can serve as an "indestructible hard drive" for the collective memory. He provides "uncorrupted data" to historians and those who have the courage to face the truth of how the past unfolded. Possessing an eonic history of the human comedy, he can provide the wisdom mortals need to be brave as they face life’s challenges.