Eternal life

I have no religious belief at all and while I suppose in some ways it would be awfully nice to live for ever (and initially it seems a lot better than the alternative) I have a sneaking feeling that it would also be either very boring or very frustrating, or both. How irritating would it be to actually be able to see your friends and family getting on with their lives without you, and cheerfully at that? How could you cope with seeing them throwing out your old clothes and even your favourite armchair, especially if they did so with relief and an announcement that they had never liked it in the first place? And if you couldn't look in on them, how would you fill your time, a whole eternity of it?

The first thing that strikes me about eternal life is that most people are quite keen on it, but only for themselves and their own dear ones - not for everyone else. How many graves (bear in mind, dear reader, that I was in Highgate Cemetery on Monday) bore hopes of being "reunited" or "together at last"? Fair enough, but would you want to be reunited with your dotty aunt, or that tedious man from down the road? And if you are granted eternal life there is no reason to suppse that they won't be granted the same.

The other thing that strikes me is that the secular concept of life after death (that we live on in memories) is pretty time-limited. I don't think about anyone that I don't, or didn't know - and when I die, the same will be true of me. I will only be remembered by friends and family for as long as they themselves live - so, say, about 70 years at most after me. The cemetery was filled with graves of people who must have been good and decent people in their time, probably respectable members of society, people who gave something back, teachers, preachers, scientists, doctors, writers and thinkers. Now their graves are being split open by saplings, pulled apart by ivy, the headstones toppling, the inscriptions faded, noone visits, noone knows anything about them and noone cares in the least.

And does it matter? Probably not. But we all like to think ourselves immortal. Illogical, that.