Immortality

How do human beings respond to changes?

Badly. Always very badly. One of the most widespread myths in the
whole world – the myth of the vampire – reflects this idea.

What is a vampire? It is someone who at a certain moment in their
existence becomes immortal. In other words, after that moment their
body will no longer follow the normal course of nature; they will
become forever young, and they can live as long as they like without
having to deal with problems caused by growing old.

The vampire's only diet is a little blood every day, and their only
care with their skin is to avoid sunlight – but after all, this is a
very small price to pay to enjoy all the possibilities of eternal
life.

Except for one thing: vampires stop in time, while the world carries
on changing. Everything that they were always used to begins to
change, and even though they have all the time in the world to adapt
to these changes, they desire immortality precisely because they
were happy with the world in which they lived. They are not
interested in accompanying these changes.

Let us imagine a human being who becomes a vampire right at the
finals of the 1986 World Cup. He could smoke on airplanes, did not
need to puzzle over picking what channel to watch on the television –
the choice was so limited. He had an actress for a sex symbol,
understood all about carburetors and fought for his socialist ideal,
convinced that the Soviet Union would soon have more capable
governors, and the yearnings of the people (called the proletariat)
would at last be respected.

One fine day he falls in love with a 22-year-old sociology student.
He admires her beauty, her enthusiasm, her idealism. He suggests
transforming her into a vampire, but she refuses – she has seen too
many horror films. She is in love too and does not want to lose him,
but she sets one single condition for going ahead with their
relationship: he must never suck her blood. The vampire has no
choice but to keep his word. They get married in the registry office
to avoid mortal crucifixes.

Twenty years roll by - in fact fly by, because another four World
Cups have taken place. The former university student is now 42 years
old, working in a bank (unemployment problems) or else writing
useless Master's and Ph.D. theses and dissertations merely to
justify her life as a professional student. Carburetors have
disappeared from the face of the earth. In horror he leafs through a
magazine and sees his old sex-symbol actress transformed into a
hybrid product made of plastic, Botox and silicone, her face coated
with tons of makeup. He feels guilty for having 200 TV channels and
only watches the same ones as long ago.

The Soviet Union has collapsed. He was obliged to abandon his
beloved cigarettes (although it did not affect his health, don't
forget that vampires are immortal), because smoking became
impossible, either because of laws or because of the way people
looked at him in restaurants. And worst of all: everyone is talking
about chat, Internet, iPod, rave and so on. The vampire tries to
keep up to date, but everything seems absolutely complicated,
irritating and senseless. He looks at the computer as if he were
looking at a clove of garlic – with a mixture of horror and
impotence. He will never be able to manage one of those, although he
has tried several times.

His friends are retired, spend their days playing cards – they also
do not know how to deal with computers, but they do not mind, the
group has grown old together, they all have the same interests and
can share experiences.

The vampire stays young. Immortal. Now he is faced with eternal
depression. He attempts suicide, going out in the sunlight or
looking at crucifixes, only to discover that these were myths
created by the Church and cause him no harm at all.

He is left with one consolation: there is still one political figure
that he knows all about (because all the other governors across the
world have changed).

But Fidel Castro will also pass. And then nothing, absolutely
nothing, will remain of the world that the vampire once loved so
much.

Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication