Thursday Thirteen

1. I always have had a tendency to read in low light. Or just wander around the house without the lights on until it's totally dark. My husband says I am part vampire.

2. Vampires are imaginative creatures that humans made up because we have a short lifespan. Vampires live forever, always at the same age.

3. Becoming a vampire at 20 and then living forever helps with the immortality issue of, say, elves. Elves can be killed but live for thousands of years. But there is no discussion of whether they are a baby for a thousand years, and then a toddler for a thousand years, and so on and so forth. They have to age, and if they age, are they really immortal?

4. Immortality is also the reason why we have the Biblical heaven and hell. We cannot fathom not existing. Better to exist in a hellish space than to not exist at all.

5. Other images that deal with immortality include various gods and goddesses, dragons, and other fantasy species.

6. In reality, there are a few biological species thought to be immortal. According to Wikipedia, they are bacteria, a species of jellyfish that regenerates itself continuously, a hydra (a freshwater predatory animal), and bristlecone pines, which are known to be more than 5,000 years old. That's a long time to be alive. Imagine what those trees have seen.

7. The Bible explains that humans once lived much longer lives, then God became fed up with dealing with the same people for so long and said humans should only live 120 years  (Genesis 5:6). It shows that immortality and death were not something they dealt with well eons ago. Humans cannot comprehend nonexistence. I'm not sure we ever have, although I think some cultures do a better job of acknowledging we're going to die than others. The USA does a terrible job of it, we act like we're all going to live forever.

8. Personally, I don't want to live to be very old, like 117 or something. Life is hard enough regardless of the span; a long life may be a good life, but no one is exempt for heartache and pain.

9. I think living to 90 is probably plenty long, but we all go when we go.

10. Now if I could have become a vampire at age 33 or something, that would have been cool. By then I'd have been wise enough to know what I was doing, but still young enough in body to be able to get around and bite people in the neck at night.

11. Some people I would not have bitten, though. Sour pusses. Politicians. Drunkards. People like that I would leave alone. (I wonder if a vampire gets drunk if s/he bites a drunken person?)

12. Witches do not have long life spans, although in some fantasies they are nearly immortal. Taking the innocence or blood of youths to stay alive is a trope in some fantasies.

13. The reason I'm thinking about this is because June is the month of birthdays in my family. We are all getting older. And older.

Not sure we're getting any wiser.

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 709th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.