There Is No Permanence

    Honestly, the statement "there is no permanence" by Utnapishtim is largely unproblematic with my view of the world. The fact that humans have limited lives before being cast into the infinite has had no issue for countless humans in our history, and I believe that the reason for that is simply the opposite fact that death gives living life meaning. For those who believe in an afterlife, our existence on earth is all we have to prove ourselves before judgment. For those who don't believe in an afterlife, our existence is all we have, and so we must cherish every second of it, making the best of it.
    The religious, specifically those who believe in eternal life after death, don't actually believe that the eternity would be the "life" we know on earth. They believe that it would be a permanence outside of time and the dimensions, a unity with a higher power that is existence itself. The one way to get around Utnapishtim's statement on "there is no permanence" is to seek permanence outside of what "is" here.
    Death gives life meaning. The knowledge of our numbered days demands of us productivity and making the most of what we can. This is the main argument against any sense of human immortality, and quite an effective one. Who would want to live on and on and on trapped in a human mind that can only take so much? Who would want to have their days rendered as meaningless, postponing all their possible accomplishments to an eternal future? What happens when everyone dies and you are left? There would be no finality for you. No end to the struggle that is life. There would be no outro and rolling credits, leading to the standing ovation of finding peace.
    There is always meaning and value to a conclusion. The ending of a story of any kind, whether it be a novel, a movie, or a simple campfire tale, renders us at peace. Even if that ending is bad, the story still ended. There is a reason for that sad feeling you get for a franchise that keeps trying to milk itself to 7,000 reboots or sequels. That sense of discomfort comes from the "beating of a dead horse", the old saying which of course stands for: "there is no permanence".
    

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