{"id":5174,"date":"2015-02-16T22:33:13","date_gmt":"2015-02-17T03:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=5174"},"modified":"2015-02-16T21:02:21","modified_gmt":"2015-02-17T02:02:21","slug":"tuck-not-so-everlasting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=5174","title":{"rendered":"Tuck Not-So-Everlasting"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was listening to the local NPR station one evening and they were playing an interview with the author of a children’s book called \u201cTuck Everlasting<\/a>\u201d. The author’s name is Natalie Babbitt, and the book tells a story about a family (the Tucks) living way out in the middle of some forest. In their travels, they came across a spring of water one day, and took a few drinks from it. It turned out that this particular springwater has the power to make you immortal. They came across the spring a long, long time ago, and by all rights they should all be dead by the time of the story. But they (and their horse, which also took a few sips) hadn’t aged a day. And it don’t look like they are going to. <\/p>\n

In the story, a little girl from a local village decides one day to take a hike in the woods, and happens across the same spring. She’s thirsty and is about to drink up, when someone in the Tuck family comes across her and yells out \u201cNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!\u201d He runs toward her and leaps and tackles her in slo-mo, just as she raises her cupped hands to her lips. Well, maybe not (this book was written in 1975, before everything had to be a violent action-adventure in the Terminator style); but they still dissuaded her from taking that fateful sip. <\/p>\n

There’s a lot more to the plot, but the leitmotif of Tuck Everlasting is about whether anyone should really want to live forever. Babbitt doesn’t think so, and thus the story line follows. The immortal Tuck family isn’t very happy at all with their permanent exemption from death, and they convince those who haven’t yet drank from that spring that they are better off. <\/p>\n

I wasn’t aware of Tuck Everlasting as a child; I was in my senior year of college in 1975, so it didn’t make my radar. But there were other ways I might have heard of it, but just didn’t. For example, two movie versions came out, the second one a Disney release in 2002. And it was adapted into a play<\/a> shortly thereafter; it hasn’t hit Broadway yet, but is making appearances in major US cities nonetheless (upcoming run in Atlanta). <\/p>\n

From what I read, the book is still in print and sells well. It has sold over 3.5 million copies<\/a> in 40 years, and comes in at number 54 on the 2013 children’s book sales list<\/a> for titles older than one year (the \u201cbacklist\u201d), with 136,373 copies sold. (The old classic \u201cGoodnight Moon\u201d only beats it by a little at number 51). So, a lot of parents want their kids to read about the Tuck Family and learn that maybe they don’t want to live forever.<\/p>\n

I guess that this bodes well with the growing trend against religious practice and belief amongst white well-educated families. When I was a kid, I got the old-time religion answer. That is, just like the last dog and parakeet we had, and those hampsters too, you’re going to die someday \u2013 along with everyone one else. But don’t freak out because so long as you go to church and pray, God will give you a new life in a better place, which they call \u201cHeaven\u201d. And we will all meet up and be together again once that happens. I bought into that line, and the idea of death didn’t bother me too much thereafter. More pets bit the dust, followed by grandparents and eventually uncles and aunts. But I took the funeral wakes and burials mostly in stride. Goodbye for now, see you again later on.<\/p>\n

But kids don’t get that thought anymore. Instead they get the Tuck story, saying that even if we could all be together again like the Tuck family, we’d all be miserable with it. And not just miserable for a few days, but for an entire ETERNITY. So get used to it — once you’re gone, you’re gone. Enjoy the time and company you have right now, cause it ain’t gonna last. And really, it shouldn’t. (Hmmm, I hear pretty much the same thing most every Sunday from my Zen sangha). <\/p>\n

Yea, but . . . something in side of me still doesn’t like that answer. I can’t say for sure one way or another whether there is or isn’t actually an eternal afterlife. There aren’t any hard scientific facts supporting its existence, but there aren’t any good solid facts that preclude it either (especially under the new information-based ontological paradigms about reality, which are now being discussed). But regardless of its veracity, there is something of an existential negativity behind the Tuck viewpoint. Basically, it says that life and being alive has its limits. Life is no doubt interesting when you are young and you grow, when new things happen, when you dig deeper, when you make progress in one way or another. What if all such change ultimately comes to a halt (or becomes some sort of eternally repeating loop like those clever-at-first GIF avatars that you quickly get sick of)? <\/p>\n

Well then, we get something like what Bill Murray went thru in the movie \u201cGroundhog Day\u201d. Everything gets boring and frustrating; nothing new happens. I believe that’s the assumption behind Tuck Everlasting. Life will get stale at some point, as there’s not enough in the universe to keep any one person entertained for an eternity.<\/p>\n

But if there were somehow the possibility of an eternity of change and novelty paired together with the granting of an eternal time horizon, then hey, it might not be so bad. It might be interesting after all. An eternity of real living . . . so long as there were also real relationships. Part of Bill Murray’s problem was that the relationship he wanted to start with Andie MacDowell was also stuck in the Groundhog Day loop. We’d like our relationships to move, to change, hopefully to deepen and get better (but sometimes they go the other way, alas). And given the many problems and imperfections with relationships, I can’t see how ultimate perfection could ever be attained, even if time were everlasting. But they could get better and better (i.e. approach perfection \u201casymptotically<\/a>\u201d). <\/p>\n

Natalie Babbitt seems to express a deep but subtle pessimism in Tuck Everlasting, one that she charmingly shares with her young readers. I don’t buy into it. At the most fundamental level, quantum physics guarantees that change is everlasting. As to whether such change allows eternal novelty or ultimately involves eternal return, I can’t say for sure; but if I had to bet, I’d go with the former. To some degree, quantum physics involves fixed, mosaic-like entities (which would impose a limit to the number of novel manifestations that the universe can exhibit); but in other ways, it involves analog variables, which can vary in an eternal fashion. Scientific American ran an article in 2007<\/a> arguing that despite the mosaic nature of quantum physics, \u201cthe physical world is actually continuous\u2014more analog than digital\u201d. Also, If the cosmic theory of a multiverse driven by eternal chaotic inflation is correct, then certainly the multiverse would be eternally growing and changing. So, I don’t think that boredom would turn an eternal life into a repetitious Groundhog Day-like hell. So long as there were change, and so long as there were someone to share it with, I think that eternal life would be just swell.<\/p>\n

I said above that Tuck Everlasting and it’s embrace of ultimate demise is probably favored by atheists. But then again, a self-proclaimed atheist gave one of the most charming answers to a discussion question on Goodreads, i.e. would you drink Tuck’s springwater? A contributor know as PlumJo said<\/a><\/p>\n

I’d love to live forever! To be able to go everywhere and see everything, learn everything, and see how humanity and technology grows and changes . . . Maybe it’s because I’m an atheist and imagine post-death to be a whole lot of nothing, but no. I don’t ever want to die. I’d drink the water by the gallon. Life is far too interesting and way too much fun to ever want to let it go.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, you atheists do enjoy life after all !! Well, get used to it . . . there ain’t any such water here in this universe, and despite being interesting and fun, life as we know it will come to an end. As to whether there could be a second act that could be just as interesting and fun — well, no religion can truly promise that. But the better ones can offer grounds for hope, a place to see the glass as half-full. Given that such hope will never result in disappointment (because we’d have to be alive to be disappointed, but the only way to be disappointed would require being completely dead), I think that I will stand with it. In a way, such faith and hope in an eternal afterlife is somewhat like Pascal’s Wager<\/a> . . . hey, what do you have to lose (other than that smug sense of psychological superiority that some atheists like to convey)?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was listening to the local NPR station one evening and they were playing an interview with the author of a children’s book called \u201cTuck Everlasting\u201d. The author’s name is Natalie Babbitt, and the book tells a story about a family (the Tucks) living way out in the middle of some forest. In their travels, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5174"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5178,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5174\/revisions\/5178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}