— For JLB, who is still dreaming us. Would you like a shorter version for Twitter/X or a Spanish translation of this post?
The Immortal Borges: Labyrinths, Mirrors, and the Man Who Outlived Himself
Borges understood what Hollywood action films never will: Immortality is not superhuman. It is subhuman.
In his story “The Immortal” (from The Aleph ), Borges tells of a Roman soldier who drinks from a cursed river and stops dying. He wanders the earth for centuries, forgetting his own name, living among primitive troglodytes — only to realize, eventually, that those grunting creatures are the immortals. They have no need for language, for memory, for love. Why write a poem when you have forever to write all poems? Why love one person when you can outlast every face?