Life, Death, and the Dance of Memory (A Short Story)

There was once a society that discovered how to become immortal. They lived their lives for decades, but as the decades transitioned into centuries, it did not feel the same. They lost their wonder at new things. The first time they experienced something it was fresh and new, but overtime, they started to realize how cyclical the universe actually was. It just endlessly repeated itself every several decades or centuries in a constant cycle. 

Some explored differences by trying to have children. This was strictly forbidden in their immortal society to keep the population down. The children provided a sense of newness. They could vicariously see the world afresh through their children’s eyes, which gave them a type of innovation that they craved. 

This, though, eventually began to fade: after so many new generations, the experience of begetting another round of children becomes routine and boring. As they got used to the wonder of new life, its novelty started to fade. 

Others tried building their own business empire, but that too did not last. One can only build or expand so much before one reaches the limit of one’s space, and the vitality of competing against other businesses in the industry also starts to fade. 

Others tried to create their own art, but creativity can only go so far. After one has explored one’s style to the furthest reaches and delved into other styles one might be potentially interested in, art too loses its novelty 

So, the people of this society made a bold decision. They decided to learn to forget. Every few decades – 8 decades seemed like the best number – they would induce the ability to forget. 

That way, they could relearn the world as a new space each time. They cascaded their forgetting so that each decade there was always still a knowing group who could train the ones who had forgotten. Thus, the community could maintain itself over multiple generations of forgettings.

Through this, each experienced the wonder and novelty of the universe without seeing its novelty fade into the lethargy of endless iteration.