Thorns of Immortality
by Patryk Rebisz


Part I (short excerpts) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

4. Life's Do-over
"They will be returning to a place beyond anyone's conception. Nothing they know of the past, nothing they know of the present, nor any speculations about what's to come will prepare them for the future. A few names will be remembered by posterity, the memory of many will dissolve into ether soon to be forgotten even by their children's children."

"The Poet desired to be away from here (this time) so that he could dream again unchained from current reality. Something motivated him to abandon this middle-class 'success' because he felt like a failure. Speculating how it could turn out if he were to do it again, it was impossible for him to conjure up anything different."

"Dreams are not meant to come true, for if they do, the mind abandons the pleasure of fantasy."

"What terrified the Poet was the ease with which one can give up on life and how close he was to this physical and intellectual annihilation - to lack any impact on the world - failing to change mind - even that of his own… He was terrified of the future, for if yesterday or today is as irrelevant as tomorrow, death loses its meaning too."

"This desire to think rather than act was a scourge of his existence. He hated himself for spending too much time on rearranging thoughts rather than on reorganizing atoms of reality. He needed action, he needed to go against his own non-desire, to counter the kind of torpor a person feels before meeting death."

"Describing the final moments, the dying often speak of a supreme calm. Peace at one's deathbed is in contrast to apathy which is no desire for anything, including living. Death comes and takes life unopposed - this is the kind of indifference he was most afraid of."