I had always believed that I understood what it meant to be immortal, what immortality is, but with each new introduction to immortality through fiction, through films, through the ideas of those around me, more and more I’ve come to question what does it really mean to be immortal?

One thing it seems humans fear most is death—and perhaps that is also why the concept of immortal vampires is often connected with lust, sexuality, desire, lovers, greed, but also danger, allure, exhilaration when depicted by humans—as presented in Dracula, Twilight, Carmilla. We desire more time—to spend with our loved ones, to achieve our goals, to find meaning in life, to obtain more power, to get revenge—and fear leaving the world without attaining all these things. But at the same time, we fear the existence of beings that could live forever, who could have such power and hold over us, the idea that we could be controlled by our own desires and lust, and we have crafted vampires over time to be creatures that can be killed because of their seemingly unnatural and unholy nature that reminds us of our own sins.

So, if we achieved immorality, then what? When I first watched The Old Guard, I marvelled at the characters’ abilities to heal, to die and be reborn over and over again, but I was also fascinated with the different journeys each character embarked on over their seemingly eternal lifetimes—becoming a vigilante and serving the greater good, wanting to live a quiet life with someone they love, or trapped in endless torture upon revival as they returned to the moment of their first death. I began to think deeper into what I’d find myself pursuing, where I might end up, what path I might take if I were to find myself in a similar situation.

One of my first introductions to the concept of immortality was the myth of Chang’e, the Moon Goddess, who had drunk an elixir of immortality that had been intended for her husband, Hou Yi, and flew to the moon, residing there for eternity. There are variations to the myth as to the exact reason why she left for the moon, but what struck me most about the story is the concept of loneliness, of longing tied to immortality. This is similar to one of my favourite films from 2025, Frankenstein, in which the creature both could not die nor be killed. The creature is a being who was essentially born into immortality and sought only one thing: companionship. The sentiment reminded me of my spouse’s response when I asked him if he would wish to be immortal—he told me he wouldn’t, because it would mean watching those around him pass on while he remained alive. Thinking further on my spouse’s musing brought me to the understanding that there truly is an unsettling sort of loss that comes with immortality.

Both companionship and loss feel to me a very mortal concept in this sense, which brings me to another interesting depiction of immortality I stumbled upon last year—Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is a manga series with an ongoing anime adaption which follows a powerful elf who could be considered immortal even though she could die and her lifetime does come to an eventual end. But what I found most fascinating when I watched the first season of this series is the depiction of how Frieren experiences time, how calm and meandering it is, and how comfortable she is with silence, in moving through life slowly, with being by herself. If humans were truly immortal, or had lifespans that were much more extended, I believe we might behave more like Frieren, because we would have more time for self-exploration, personal growth, and perhaps more time to achieve economic stability and contentment so we wouldn’t need to spend a good number of years of our life just struggling to survive.

Another depiction of immortality I’d come across took the form of one artificially constructed in The Wandering Earth 2 and Pantheon, where loved ones’ consciousnesses were contained and sustained using technology—the idea of bringing the dead back to life virtually, of wanting to remember and wanting to be remembered, and the concept of being passed forth through memory being immortality. Likewise, this brought me to the thought of books, of historical documentation, of folklore and stories passed through the generations—things that live on even without our physical beings, a concept explored in both These Memories Do Not Belong to Us and The Memory Police. To achieve immorality outside of the bodily continuation. Yet, these are susceptible to being altered, lost, destroyed. Though if we really think about it, humans, in flesh and bone, are susceptible to the same.

So there is physical immortality, psychological immortality, immortality through generational continuation with tales passed forth, but what about spiritual immortality? I have been fascinated by the various beliefs of the afterlife, of the idea of reincarnation and the cyclical nature of the soul that is reborn again and again or crosses on into a different eternity off earth, in another realm, as an entirely different sort of being.

One of my biggest fears when I was younger was death, and later, it became regret, so I had vowed to myself to let go of my fears for both these things. For me, to fear is to be mortal, and to let go of even just a little of this feeling means a step towards immortality. And though I’m nowhere close to being immortal, sometimes, now, it feels as though I am.

So, to you dear reader, what does it mean to be immortal?

© 2026 Ai Jiang