To live on.  To not have to die.  It is the common thread tying almost all cultures, religions and philosophies together.  Is it not what every nation has clamored for?

The furtive longings of a billion souls from a thousand civilizations have whispered their desire for it. The baked clay tablets of Mesopotamia speak of it. Fragments of Egypt’s fragile papyrus pages still share the dream. The Gilgamesh Epic of Babyloniaaround 2,200 B.C. chronicles the hero’s quest for immortality. The ancient Greeks thought that immortalitywas attained through courageous effort on the battlefield. Shakespeare imagined immortality coming through the longevity of the lines he wrote. The Philosopher’s Stone, with its lead-into-gold alchemic dream, symbolized transcending ourleaden mortal existence into a golden immortal elixir of life andrejuvenation. Time would fail us to include the Egyptians’ mummies, the Indians’ nirvana, and on down to our present day whereactors and directors try to immortalizethemselves in…