the fear of eternity
or formally, apeirophobia
spoiler warning for:
It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)
Mother 3 (2006)
The Good Place (2016-2020)
the last scene in don hertzfeldt's It's Such a Beautiful Day has stuck with me ever since i've watched it. seeing it on the big screen during its reshowing last year (at the revue!!) also got me thinking about it more and more. however, i've still found it increasingly difficult to organize and articulate this fixation. yet i think it is one of the most accurate portrayals of the terrifying irrational fear of eternity, or forever.
within the film, it's an alternate fate to the main character, bill, by the narrator after bill originally dies under a tree, peacefully. this depiction sees bill experience the exact opposite, where he lives for all of eternity "until times loses all meaning, and the moment comes that he knows only the position of the stars, and sees them whether his eyes are closed or open. it shows how when even compared to dying, living forever seems like a much more terrifying reality that most don't imagine when thinking of immortality.
"death will forever be a stranger to him. people will come and go until names lose all meaning. until people lose all meaning and vanish entirely from the world. and still, bill will live on"
we like it when the things we do have tangible impacts, where it feels like our actions mean something to the world. that's why it's uneasy when thinking about eternity. the people that we meet, the relationships we form, the art we discover, the knowledge we accrue and the experiences that we cherish will have been all for nothing. by that point, it feels much less than a drop in the ocean.
"until he forgets his name, and the place he'd once come from"
this derealization is probably the most terrifying part of it. any and all connections about will inevitably fade away, leaving the only true companionship through this eternal journey being you and your thoughts. absolutely nothing else is permanent.
i think this is truly what this boils down to. it's the isolation from one's meaning or impact that makes eternity so terrifying.
we see the perfect embodiment of this concept in Mother 3 through the absolutely safe capsule. the absolutely safe capsule is machine that is able to "protect one from every manner of danger". however, once entered, you will never be able to exit it ever again. it will be able to sustain life for as long as time exists. in a translated interview with Shigesato Itoi, he states that "5.5 billion years later, Porky will live on". sounds like a familiar quote.
(the 5.5 billion years, by the way, refers to the estimated time that the sun is expected to exhaust its hydrogen supply, exploding and ending all life on earth)
this is the same fate that bill experiences, yet worse as you are now completely confined to the capsule itself and cannot interact with the outer world as you watch all of history pass through the window.
the previous examples had been purely fictional and exaggerated forms of eternity, yet it truly realizes when considering versions of afterlife that we are presented with. i'm not interested in the intricacies of the different versions of afterlife, but more to the generalized concept of an eternal rec room following one's death.
this theoretical afterlife seemingly solves all the aforementioned problems. we're able to live and form relationships with equally immortal people, and are thus able to enjoy a life of eternal happiness. right?
approaching the finale of The Good Place, we, alongside the main cast, are confronted with one last dilemma of the afterlife. up until this point, the eponymous "good place" was the show's equivalent to a heaven-like afterlife. yet once they eventually arrive, everyone seems to be agonized to the point where they match the demeanor of those that have been tortured in the bad place. it turns out that, once you live forever, you run out of good things to appreciate in life. even if there was an infinite amount of gratifying things in life, as we stand humans are going to be incapable of living forever.
we live each day in the hope that tomorrow will be better, and that's only possible understanding that there's an eventual end. if there wasn't an end, it would feel pointless to do almost anything. this circles back to the reason that eternity is scary. with a theoretical endlessness to one's life, nothing you ends up mattering, and any good will eventually disappear. that's the poetic beauty that death seems to be, the result of a life's worth of coalescing experiences and joys. without it, there is no motivation to do or pursue anything. in that sense, death is the best thing that will ever happen to us.
eventually, a door is created that allows one to stop existing entirely. this turns out to be the panacea to this dilemma, as knowing there's a way out, though voluntary, still gives a reason for passion again.
worth mentioning also is the anime To Your Eternity, which seem to harbour similar themes and may be one that i visit later down the road.
lastly, this isn't a romanticization of death. it's more that, in proposition of immortality or eternity, death seems to be a much more peaceful option. living forever seems terrifying, but dying without passion would be even worse. another scene from It's Such a Beautiful Day says it the best.
"You will only get older.