So many people ponder eternity.

They want eternal life, eternal joy for themselves,
and some pathetic people want eternal grief for others
for whatever reason.

Eternity is infinity described using time.

Endlessness.

There are many problems with eternity,
just as eternity provides many solutions.

The most obvious solution eternity provides
is to the horror of death, of the annihilation of the self.

To exist, in some form, forever, cures that horror.

Those who love this idea, feel that it gives meaning
to existence: after all, why learn or do anything
if all that effort will be lost at the end
of the short, short human lifespan?

Seems such a waste.

Those that loath eternity feel that it strips meaning
from existence: after all, there are only so many possible
things to do and think within the set of still being
recognizably oneself,
and so, after a thousand years
or a million,
total boredom would make
eternity a literally endless hell.

And this is true, of course.
As long as one remains the same,
the set of possiblities is finite,
and against infinity,
that means endless
boredom.

But, reply the lovers of eternity,
the self changes always, over time,
and by the end of that thousand or million
years, one would have changed
into someone new by then,
just as a baby, becomes an adult.
this could go on forever,
in stride with eternal time.

But then,
if you are no longer yourself,
then who is it that
enjoys living forever?

'You' ceased to exist,
somewhere in the changing
over the millennia,
forever gone
replace by what you
have become.

So the problem of eternity
is a very tricky one.

It seems that one cannot
enjoy eternity for long.

But then again,
what do we mean, really,
when we conjure this
idea of 'self', anyway?

I suppose that needs
to be settled
before the value,
or the curse,
of eternity
can be determined.

I may not have the answer
to the problems
of wanting eternal life,

but I know what
the personal clock
of an eternal being
would look like.