#12. If you could choose to live forever, would you?

Honestly, I haven't read many books, though this year I've tried to compensate for that. But one book that I did read in my middle school years was Natalie Babbit's Tuck Everlasting. I read it on my own time actually because my then-favorite actress Alexis Bledel had starred in the 2002 film version of it.

Here's a brief summary:

A sheltered little girl named Winnie discovers the Tucks, a family who lives forever because they drank spring water flowing from a beautiful forest tree. She learns of their strange limbo existence and is warned of the disadvantages of immortality. In short time, Winnie becomes accepted and loved by the Tucks in a way that she has never been loved by her own family. She also becomes infatuated with Jesse Tuck, the adolescent son. However, a misunderstanding with the law forces the Tucks to leave town, but not before Winnie is given a bottle of the last of the spring water. However, Winnie does not use the water for herself and naturally dies.

This has a different perspective of the concept of time. When I read S-5, I tried to convince myself that maybe everything does happen all at once. Then I realized it couldn't be. I want to prove this one step further with Tuck Everlasting. Like, what if someone lived FOREVER? How does everything happen all at once for that person?
Though Babbit's work focuses more on why mortality is necessary, it also presents the idea (by using the Tucks) that time is what prevents everything from happening at once. The Tucks teach Winnie why allowing the world immortality would disrupt the balance of life. It would throw human out of the great cycle of life and death, turning them into the equivalent of rocks The cycle of life and death can be LOGICALLY PROVEN. People who believe in reincarnation would also support this belief. And a cycle most certainly does not happen all at once.

"Everything's a wheel, turning and turning, never stopping. The frogs is part of it, and the bugs, and the fish, and the wood thrush, too. And people. But never the same ones. Always coming in new, always growing and changing, and always moving on. That's the way it's supposed to be. That's the way it is."
— Tuck Everlasting

The past comes before the present, the present before the future. Time machines are a figment of the imagination. They will never be invented because Time does not allow us to move in and out of its three states. Time is a funny thing.
Like I hinted in earlier posts, Billy became unstuck in time because he was insane. The best way to cope with tragic happenings is to let go of the memory. If you no longer remember what has happened, you will not make yourself believe that you can revisit it. I could try and try to explain how I think time works, but tehre will be people who will disagree with my opinions. But, Billy was obviously suffering from PTSD, so I don't think he actually did become unstuck in time.
However, Vonnegut's narrative outlook on the matter of death is still relevant. Though a person may be dead, he was alive in many other moments. And some people need that reassurance to move forward with their lives.

Yet, memories mix into one another like liquids as time passes.