The Immortality of Mortals

Note: This is a reflection I wrote in my notebook on October 3, 2010.

"The immortality of mortals" may sound paradoxical. According to monotheistic religions, every living being will taste death; immortality belongs only to God. However, throughout human history, humanity's perpetual pursuit of immortality and attempts to compensate for this through mythology by creating demigods or immortal heroes is no coincidence. Perhaps the most human explanation for this is the deep fear of being forgotten.

As far as we know, humans are the only creatures capable of anticipating their own death. My son Onur argues that some animals also sense when death is approaching. For example, an elderly elephant separating from its herd and withdrawing into solitude. In my view, this behavior is more part of an instinctual cycle. Moreover, I had heard that some plants bloom excessively before they wither and die. Some interpret this behavior as a reflex to ensure the continuation of the species.

If even a plant, driven by the concern to perpetuate its species, brings its existence to its peak at the end of its life, then it is not at all surprising that humans, in the later stages of their lives, ask the question: "What am I leaving behind to be remembered?"

Well, is it sufficient to leave behind well-raised children to be remembered? Perhaps to some extent... As a thinker once said: "A person truly dies the moment their name is mentioned for the last time." Because if a name is no longer mentioned, that being has also been erased from reality.

One way to escape being forgotten is to leave behind a lasting work. However, what kind of work this is also matters: A work that adds value to people's lives, multiplies knowledge, opens new paths... It can be literary, scientific, technological, or artistic. But there is one criterion that applies to all: As long as humanity can benefit from this work, its creator will also live on in memory. However, if one day that work is also forgotten, its creator too will be lost among the dust of history.

I had read somewhere: A Turkish journalist traveling to Paris gets into a taxi. When the driver realizes he is Turkish, he pulls out a faded business card from his pocket and asks if he knows this person. The owner of the business card had died fifteen years earlier. When the journalist gives this news, the driver stares at the business card for a long time and says: "So he died..." For him, until that moment, that person was still alive. That is when true death occurs.

Although millions of people have contributed to the point where human civilization has reached today, we remember only a few names. We remember Hammurabi because he showed the courage to compile and enforce the first written laws. The laws were perhaps the legacy of those before him, but he is the one who went down in history as the "first implementer." We remember Socrates because he made philosophy the intellectual domain of everyone, not just the elite. He has no written works, but he left behind a method of thinking. This is what makes him immortal.

Humans have created their civilization thanks to the desire to be remembered. This drive brings risks with it: time, effort, hardship, and moreover, risking one's life... Like the thoughts for which Socrates gave his life. For people who surrender themselves to the ordinary flow of daily life and only consume, such concerns do not exist. They are considered spiritually dead before they physically die.

So, how does a person become immortal?

The answer is clear: By leaving behind lasting works.

Some ways that make humans immortal are:

Making inventions that permanently ease human life, Establishing a state that shapes societies, Creating fundamental thought structures like democracy, human rights, and law, Revealing unknown aspects of the universe, Contributing to understanding the human soul and body, Creating aesthetic appreciation through art, Shedding light on humanity's past and future in fields like history, anthropology, and religion, Being heroes who have realized great ideals, Raising individuals who are beneficial to humanity.

Special emphasis should be placed on the last one. Because the future will be built by well-educated people. My mother and father were not literate. They could not contribute financially to my education. But they left me a very valuable moral inheritance: "Never to want anything without a corresponding effort." In their words, this was: "My child, we never let a forbidden morsel pass through your throat."

This inheritance became a moral compass for me. It is forbidden to obtain something without expending effort. Taking what belongs to someone else without their consent is also forbidden... My wife and I tried to give our children a good education with this understanding. We wanted them to be individuals who could stand on their own feet. And we raised them to be people who would be beneficial to humanity.

Perhaps we too, with this devotion, are leaving a small trace for the future.

Because a person's gateway to immortality is the trace they leave behind.