Eternity?

Not a very photogenic day but the gulls were busy patrolling the cliffs and arcing over the sea in the run-up to the breeding season. It's the same routine every year.

I spent much of the morning trying to reach The Old Man: he wasn't picking up my calls. I guessed this was probably due to a glitch following a change in his telephone provider last week but, at 91, there could be other reasons for his silence. To make matters worse, BT told me they could not check another company's line (gah!) so I had no way of finding out whether there was a fault or not. Eventually I got through to him on his mobile and all was well. He couldn't receive incoming calls, his TV had stopped working and he can't use the internet at present but he was listening to classical music on the radio and reading Great Expectations on his Kindle.

We had a chat as usual. He's always lived alone and has no wish to change but he is finding that, with a failing memory, it is difficult to deal with his financial affairs without my help. He said that he would like me to activate my "Power of Eternity". Of course he meant the Power of Attorney we set up years ago that would give me the legal right to act in his name when the time came but his slip of the tongue got me thinking.

As a child, introduced to Christian belief, I always wondered whether the heavenly gift of eternal life wouldn't be a bit boring, like an endless school day. What would there be to do? Or would the time flash by? A thousand ages in Thy sight Are like an evening gone as the hymn puts it. What would be the point?

Later on, the brilliant satirical novel that is Gulliver's Travels confirmed my suspicions. One of the lesser known realms visited by Swift's protagonist is Luggnagg, where Gulliver learns to his delight that certain of the population are born immortal. They are called Struldbrugs and are distinguished only by a dot on the forehead. Gulliver imagines life everlasting as a opportunity to make loads of money and to learn everything there is to know, then spend the rest of eternity conversing with other equally brilliant minds.

It turns out not to be like that. Immortality is seen as a curse: Struldbrugs don't die but they continue to age; at 80 their marriages are dissolved (no couple can stand each other forever!) and they are dispossessed of all they own, otherwise they would take over everything and there would be nothing to inherit. In consequence they are impoverished and have to beg, at the same time becoming increasing decrepit, infirm and grotesque. Their memories go and by age 200, unable to keep up with changes in language, they can no longer converse. Reviled and ignored, they long for the release of death.

Gulliver has to admit that from what I had heard and seen, my keen appetite for perpetuity of life was much abated. I grew heartily ashamed of the pleasing visions I had formed; and thought no tyrant could invent a death into which I would not run with pleasure, from such a life. See the full text here.

So, I don't know: would I want the Power of Eternity and if had it would I want to confer it upon enemies rather than friends, let alone upon myself?

I saw Eternity the other night,
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright;
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
Driv'n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world
And all her train were hurl'd.
(Henry Vaughan)