Phobia of eternity

A reflection on what eternal life would really imply.

I don’t have a phobia of eternity.
Can one even fear that which one does not believe even exists?

But, though I do not believe it can be, for all must begin and all must end, though I do not have a phobia of eternity as such; no concept imaginable strikes fear into my heart more accurately and viciously than the notion of the never-ending, the eternally perpetual.

Just as pleasure, joy, and the shining moments of existence are to be constants of life, however fleeting or grand they may be; so, too, is pain, suffering, and the gaping cracks of hell that creep into our time in the universe. This suffering, prolonged into eternity, and the powerlessness of being unable to truly rest or put a stop to the unstoppable marching on of that merciless Lord Time, would be the penance of a being who dared to have such hubris as to wish upon itself the punishment of eternal life.
Why, though, would one fear the passing of time? And why, thus, would eternity appear an abhorrence?

No force on Earth is more destructive than time itself: it rots crops, slaughters billions, erodes entire landscapes and turns all unrecognisable. Ultimately, time is a synonym of change and the end of all things, for the greatest change one can almost know is death. Change is feared because it demands constant questioning, which costs more effort than to accept universal truths, and because we are powerless to stop it, sooner or later. As beings of hubris and arrogance that we are, with contempt for the universe, and a wish to conquer it all, we will despise and condemn that which we can not control, but merely put off.

However, it would logically follow from a fear of Time and Death, that we would welcome a reality where we need not face the end of all things, but where we can exist eternally. Notwithstanding, further examination of what Eternity implies betrays why it is the greatest among all phobias.
Even knowing that time is unstoppable, we will forever fight against it – why do we cling to nostalgia and tradition? This undying war against the unforgiving drums that chase and reach all erodes away our very conscience and will, where the only escape from Time and the only respite that provides shelter from the battle is, naturally, Death itself.

Death is not only the end of Life, it is simply the end. No awareness can succeed it, and none may remain beyond it. Only in death do we cease to struggle against Time, and therefore robbing one of the right to die, of the right to cease to be (for this, in itself, is a fundamental right of any being), would be nothing short of the vilest punishment to indict unto any creature.
Eternal life, thankfully – nay, mercifully – an unrealisable fiction, would constitute the supreme violation of existence and Death, of the natural order of things, of Time, and of peace.

But furthermore, all life and existence consists of interwoven realities – none isolated, as a true isolated system is nothing more than science fiction –, and thus, a being immune to the passage of time, who existed eternally, would be fundamentally disconnected from all other realities, and could not even be considered a being at all. The social nature of a human being, for example, would demand interaction with others. But an eternal being, though unable to die, would by no means be unaffected by Death; for a human who does not love is not human at all, and to witness that which one loves die is the greatest pain of all, greater than can be physically afflicted unto one. Thus, once more, it is evident that Eternity is not freedom, but the most grand of all sufferings.

Beyond the scope of humankind, the universe itself, and all that which our reality encompasses, requires death for birth. If nothing ends, nothing can begin. To create, one must destroy. The beauty of life stems from the new, the unseen, the undiscovered.
If, for life and continuity to live on, Death is a requirement, then let Time make dust of us all once more, and let none ever dare to wish for Eternity.