HOW TO LIVE FOREVER

If you think about it — really think about it — what are we but compilations of the people we have known and loved?

BY ALEXANDRA DEL CAÑAL

When I was 18, I discovered the secret to immortality.

My secret is by no means an original thought. The notion of living forever has been toyed with by countless others, from Plato to Shakespeare to the Buddha himself. I, however, think we are already in the process of creating our own eternities.

My enlightenment took place on a balmy Miami evening in a little slice of paradise. I was at the beach with some friends at the beginning of summertime, drunk off the receding sunset and blissfully conscious of the limitless possibilities ahead. We luxuriated in the moment, sparsely speaking, each lost in our heads. I had a book of poems.

“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop,” writes Rumi, a best-selling poet and theologian.

I dismissed the lines as a mere pretty thought. But later, when the beachgoers cleared and the sky’s immeasurable blackness enveloped the sand, I found myself turning the lines over in my head.

The entire ocean in a drop.

At some point in our lives, we must each confront our own mortality. If you’re like me, you’ve already begun to think about it. The awareness of the inevitability of the end is possibly the most profound experience shared by all human beings. We live, and we die.

Or so I believed.

The thing about life, I’ve come to realize, is that it never truly ends. If you think about it — really think about it — what are we but compilations of the people we have known and loved? I am a pianist because my grandmother had a dream that I one day would be. I am a writer because of my eighth-grade English teacher. I like to dance salsa because my father once let me stay up late on a school night to learn the box step. I wear my childhood best friend’s shirt to bed at night because she never took it home, I order my steak medium-rare because my ex-boyfriend did, and I smile at strangers to honor the ones who have smiled at me. I have my mother’s ferocity and my sister’s empathy, my roommate’s humor and my childhood crush’s taste in films.

Everyone who unwittingly crafted the person I am today has also had their lives molded by others, and those people were also shaped by their own relationships and experiences. The impacts we make — and those made onto us — extend far beyond our perception. Within our conscious and unconscious minds lie fragments of our ancestors, friends and even mere acquaintances.

We are, quite literally, the entire ocean in a drop. Through others, we live on. We become infinite.

Once I recognized my own infinitude, every waking moment was revolutionized. Each encounter transformed into a chance to memorialize myself, to make a tiny home in a foreign heart.

Now, I am desperate to expand my eternity. Even if I become no more than a sentence in somebody’s story, I strive to leave an impression on everyone I meet. After that summer, I gave more compliments, reached out to old friends, shared secrets with strangers, took greater risks, loved with heightened fervor and welcomed unknown realities. I embraced the ocean within me.

I won’t pretend to know all the answers. The truth is, I am still figuring out what to do with my infinity — and I probably will be for as long as I am aware of it. The key is knowing it exists. Once you accept that you are both the drop and the ocean, your life ceases to be solely your own.

So, just as I am everything and everyone I have held dear in this life, I pose the question…

Who are you?