The Inner Fire

EOS, the goddess of dawn, was a daughter of the Sun. The primary object of her affections was a handsome young Trojan named Tithonus. The problem came when Eos realized that Tithonus, being mortal, would grow old. So Tithonus begged Eos for immortality, and Eos in turn begged Zeus, who granted her wish. Tithonus was indeed granted immortality - but the couple did not live happily ever after. Tithonus had been granted eternal life but not eternal youth. So Tithonus grew older and older and more and more unattractive. When he got really old, he begged Eos for death. But once immortal, there can be no changing things back, so Eos turned him into a grasshopper instead.

Like Tithonus, human beings long for immortality. They pine, they yearn, their hearts burn for it. They are never completely satisfied. It is always the winter of their discontent. They are as if touched with the hunger for a lost paradise and they will search for it until their dying breath. If ever this flame within them should die, the tree of life would bear no fruit, the sap of passion never flow again. There would remain only a figment of life, a stark and lifeless sign. If this inner fire dies, humanity would perish, according to Teilhard de Chardin, either through nausea or revolt.