How to Immortalise Yourself

All I’m saying is, Robert Pattinson got it right.

Not just the whole “be exceptionally handsome, chaotic and a practical kitchen utensil (that jawline could slice any root veg)” kind of right. Nor his decision to refuse any and all workouts whilst prepping for his role as the new Batman. But actually, his other bat variant. His vampiric self.

That man is immortal.

That man — both as his vampire fictional character and his very own, real life self — will live forever, because he has left his (bite)marks all over this damn planet. In his work, in his fans, in his talent and general ethos. He’s taken this life and lived it, various times from various perspectives, leaving the thumbprints of each of his identities every which way.

And I want to do the same damn thing.

You Don’t Have to Live Forever to Live Forever

According to my pal Richard Shun Airy (but we call him Dick Shun Airy), the definition of immortal is:

“Not mortal; not liable or subject to death; undying.”

But according to the History of all Humankind, that’s a pretty impossible feat for us mere mortals to achieve. Of the two things we know with absolute certainty in this world — one being that I would literally risk it for a biscuit — every living thing will one day stop living. We’re all going to die. So of course we can’t be immortal.

Except wait: we can.

Because Dick also informs me that immortality has a secondary meaning:

“Perpetual; lasting; constant.”

Now that is something we can do. Because we don’t have to be here for our effects to remain. We don’t have to be alive for the memory of us to be. We don’t have to live forever, to live forever.

Stories End — But They Still Remain

One day the author of the Harry Potter books will die. In the days after, so will every person to have been alive when she published them. Every cast and crew member from the movies. Every superfan. Every publisher that rejected her.

Every Twitter user she offended. Every 20 year old on a gap year working at the gift shop in Harry Potter World. Everybody who went to school with a cast member (did I mention I went to the same school as the Weasley twins?).

Eventually, there will be nobody left who existed throughout the birth of Harry and his wizarding pals.

But still: he will be known. His stories will live on, be read, be adored. There’ll be film remakes and updated rollercoasters and even more bloody book covers reprinted. Even when Daniel Radcliffe’s great great great grandkids have hopped onto their brooms and zipped into the afterlife, Harry’s story will still remain.

The same applies to us.

Because, much like in Harry Potter, we have horcruxes. If you don’t know what this is, it’s an object in which you tether a piece of your heart to, in order to attain immortality. To “anchor one’s own soul to earth if the body is destroyed.” Think of it is a lifeline. A piece of you that lives on in an object of your choosing.

“Part of your soul which you keep somewhere else, in humans or objects. Voldemort’s motive for it was to save himself from dying as even when he is killed, his soul wouldn’t leave the world. Very intelligent I’d say. But that was fiction. What about real life? Are they real too?” — Tushar Gulati

Now sure, this is all a little whimsical. First she mentions Twilight and now Harry Potter? Is the young adult section of Goodreads sponsoring this post? But I’m just laying the foundation here so you can see how powerful a concept this is — and then implement it into your own life, accordingly.

You don’t need to be a wizard. Nor a vampire. Nor a handsome actor that has appeared in both these franchises (just saying). You simply need to be you.

But you need to do you, right.

Kill Off the Bad Bits Before You Immortalise the Good

Every day we are tethering a piece of ourselves onto something. Every single day — and all of the moments within it. We don’t even realise it half the time, all of the time, which is why we let ourselves waste such a vital opportunity.

You see, everything we do, everything we make, every thought and choice and action, we’re immortalising. We do things, we meet people, we create and make and build so that traces of us live forever within them — in the people, places, things we produce. Every watercolour we paint, we live inside of. Every cheesy aubergine we bake, that’s a serving of us. Every hamster we hold, our fingerprints linger on his fur. Every campsite we sleep at, every barman we kiss, every pillow we cry into; there lies a fragment of our life.

Even in terms of the almighty Science™, energy is neither created nor destroyed. Meaning, whatever we turn our energy towards, whatever we focus on, whatever we gift our attention to, it retains our energy.

Which is to say: even the crappy stuff.

The things we shout at our loved ones. The halfhearted emails we send. The unsweetened coffee we drink because we’re trying to cut back on sugar. The love we settle for. The lifestyle we succumb to. The poor treatment we accept because we think we deserve it. All these things, things less than what we’re worth, less than what we’re capable of giving, they contain a chunk of us and the context behind our choices. So if we choose to make bad ones, if we choose to be anything less than our best, if we choose to live a crappy ol’ life — then the story we leave behind will be a crappy one.

So stop immortalising yourself in the bad things. Stop leaving your kisses on the hearts of those who don’t love you properly. Stop leaving your fingerprints on the staplers of jobs that disrespect you. Stop leaving your footprints on the sand of places that don’t feel like home.

Sack off the crappy if you want your life to be happy.

Done?

Okay ace. Now for the easy part: eternalising our existence.

A Horcrux a Day Keeps The Grim Reaper Away

We immortalise ourselves in the things we make. The things we do. The things we think and say and create and trial and give and have and become.

We’re all hoarders in the lifetime. We collect memories and moments, we touch people’s hearts, we hold their hands, we entangle our lives. It’s in the pieces of us we hold onto, the bits of us stashed in shoe boxes beneath our bed, inside pockets of old handbags and the messages we’ve saved in our drafts.

It’s in the people and the places and the projects, in the plans we make and in our most private thoughts. It’s in the cards we buy and the doughnuts we send. It’s in the gestures and the gift bags and the listening ears. The effect of you? It’s in every inch of your existence.

You live forever inside:

• The iced mocha you buy for your nan
• The bike seat at the gym with your butt sweat on
• Your choice to give up smoking
• That kiss on your rabbit’s forehead
• The tattoo of the date you came out
• The necklace you made out of bottle caps
• The door you hold open for a stranger
• The smile you share with your reflection in a nightclub bathroom
• Those white chocolate pancakes you made for yourself
• The screenplay you wrote when nobody else believed in you
• The screenplay you wrote even though you didn’t believe in yourself
• The golf championship you took part in
• Your tears mixed into the shower water
• The things you think about your appearance
• The way you sign off an email
• The frequency you tell your wife that you love her
• That additional view on that Youtube vlog all thanks to you watching
• The poem you wrote about your handsome dentist
• That mirror selfie that’s so gorgeous you printed it

You see, we don’t need to have kids for our legacy to live on. We don’t need to start our own business (but if I do, it’s going to be a publishing house called The Em-Press™) or develop our own perfume (but if I do, it’s going to be named The Em-pty Bottle™) or appear on Graham Norton (but if I do, I’m going to severely em-barrass myself).

Our “family name” is immortalised on the spines of the novels we write and the documents we sign and our online orders from H&M. We live in our creations and decisions and choices and memories. Our DNA, our ethos, our personality, our emotions, our critical thinking, our compassion, our social skills, our cooking skills, our self — it lives on in everything we do whilst we’re alive.

It lingers there, a residual imprint on the universe.

Which is why we have to live with purpose, and make and do things to immortalise ourselves in this lifetime. We have to talk about what we love, we have to intentionally think about what matters, we have to share the seconds that mean the most. We tell stories to cement them, as moment and as memory, to embrace the meaning within them — because there is meaning in everything. We simply have to write it in ourselves. I mean, come on. Even Jesus has his own book.

We can no longer waste our time, our energy, our selves on the things that don’t truly matter to us. On the things we wouldn’t want our names associated with. On a life we wouldn’t choose for our loved ones. We must stop endorsing the things that we wouldn’t want to last a mere four minutes, much less the whole of forever.

So stop settling for the cheap brand of cereal you don’t really like. Get out of that relationship that makes you feel lonely. Quit the job that fills you with dread each morning. Sack off the trainers that blister your feet. Delete the social media that makes you feel shamed. Shake off the doubt that’s preventing you from tap dancing. Ignore the people saying you’ll never finish that marathon.

Stop associating with a life that you wouldn’t gladly live on repeat, every day for all of eternity.

Because we live forever in what we do, what we make, what we love. It’s our fingerprint on the fabric of the universe.

Don’t you get it? We are immortalised, simply because we mortals are alive.

Oh hey, whilst you’re here: why not put the “em” into your “emails” and lob your name onto my mailing list for weekly em-bellishments on my rose-tinted, crumb-coated lens of life. It’s the equivalent of the reduced section in the supermarket (low value Weird Crap™ that you didn’t know you needed).