Date: 2023-11-13 Pages: 342 *spoilers* I went into this book blind (it was recommended by someone whose book recommendations, for me, possess no additional need for verification), meaning I had no knowledge on who Tom Robbins was, what the book was about, even what Jitterbug Perfume could possible refer to. By the first page, I knew I would love the book. I mean this quite literally: I sat down on my flight, read the first page, chuckled, and got comfortable. Over the next two days — with brief pauses to do a debate competition; a story I'll tell later, perhaps — I devoured the book and all its magic. Here's what I've been thinking about. What makes something immortal? Robbins says four discrete habits can create physical immortality; conventional wisdom argues lasting contribution to society or just fame in general, i.e legacy, is the most approximate form attainable; religion proposes salvation. If we see immortality as the lengthening of the expected value of your life — maybe I'm completely off, but stick with me for a second — Alobar is actually most immortal in the leadup to discovering the secret to immortality. On his thousands-of-years journey, he keeps discovering secret after secret, and the actual number of years that he is able to live increases. Interestingly, after obtaining the capacity for complete immortality, the reasons he would have to stop living his current life *increase*. There are more threats to his life (his appearance has become more youthful, meaning he is noticed by more envy; Kudra's ambitions wane) meaning the likelihood of his current life ending have increased, meaning the expected value of his lifespan has *decreased*.[^1] From here, one could arrive at the cliched-but-still-true-in-my-experience conclusion that process > results. Another interesting observation is that even immortality — definitionally permanent in its valuation — is not invulnerable to the process of devaluation that seems to invariably occur whenever something is attained. I've yet to find an exception, unless something is valuable in an ongoing way — think human relationships — which then recurs back to process > result. However, Alobar's desire for immortality seems less born from a desire to shun death or running out of time, but instead to avoid the natural process of aging — a process that seems to cause Alobar grief (cf grey hair) and stand in the way of his happiness. This perhaps explains the insufficiency of other forms of "immortality": legacy doesn't lead to visceral happiness; salvation isn't focused on this life. Another interesting observation: while the modern response to the natural process of aging is to attack it artificially ([1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Johnson)), this account — yes, it is fictional, but it is also plausible in the mind —submits a number of natural processes are all one needs. To move away from the reading for meaning, I enjoyed the book's unapologetic absurdity. Several parts were surreal, almost in the spirit of a Murakami novel but even cheekier in tone, as if both author and reader knew the person on the other side of the page was smiling. I'd read a page's events or a physical description, smile and think "*yeah, why not?*", the picture clear in my mind. As I "travel East" — as Alobar's journey is framed — I may not return with the secrets to immortality, but I'm confident I'll discover something in the process. [^1]: The math becomes incorrect if you say immortality = infinite life years, so I guess I'm technically wrong, unless you believe no infinities are larger than other infinities; and so on and so forth, I'm sure there's more to this primitive observation. You get my point though, I hope.