Monday, February 04, 2013

Diamonds Are Forever. Maybe You And Me Also.



 This blue diamond will outlast us, our planet, even our sun

It is often said that diamonds are forever. Who first said that?

In 1947, De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., hired the Ayers & Son, advertising agency to create an advertising campaign that would reverse  declining diamond sales worldwide.  Frances Gerety, a copywriter for Ayers & Son, was working late one night to the point of exhaustion. Finally in desperation, she put her head down on the table and pleaded for help. Just before she left work that night she scribbled the words “a diamond is forever” on a piece of paper and the rest is history.

But why is a diamond forever... literally?

The answer lies in the unique chemical structure of a diamond. Everything on the earth is made up of atoms and hardness depends on how closely the atoms are held together. Diamonds have incredibly strong bonds because they are made up of carbon. Being the smallest of the atoms that can be bonded, carbon fits in more tightly together with other atoms, making a hard and compressed substance. And best of all, once these atoms have been compressed at high enough temperatures to make a diamond, they are literally stuck there forever. Therefore, the phrase “diamonds are forever” is more than just a catchy marketing slogan. It’s because diamonds quite literally are, forever.

Forever. That has a nice ring to it. Particularly to us humans that want to leave a part of us behind - for whatever reason - Maybe so our contributions to humanity or the  memory of us won't be lost to the forgetting mists of time.

Famous people - actors, writers, politicians -  have their contributions and deeds written down and recorded in all manner of  documents that will last - not till the end of our sun - but at least to the end our civilization, however long(or short) long that may be.

Nearly all of us want something of ourselves to survive down through the ages, something we generally do by having children, grandchildren, etc. A part of us will survive through them, so long as the chain of progeny - your descendants - remains unbroken.

BUT... one broken link in the chain and it's all over. Whatever uniqueness you and your ancestors gave to humanity is lost, and here's that word again: Forever. C'est la  vie. Or  to put it more accurately, C'est la mort.

So. Perhaps you want  a bit of yourself to survive without being too picky about DNA, downline, descendants, etc. There is now a way to do just that, and even before you kick off.

There now exists a firm called "Lifegem" that can send a piece of you to infinity, maybe even beyond:

http://www.lifegem.com/index.aspx?BType=GTxt&BAg=HCrem&gclid=CNqSyt6fnbUCFUKoPAod2XYAJQ

As they say:

Your very own LifeGem Diamond(s) can be created from the carbon in  your cremation ashes, a lock of your  hair, or both.

You can send them -  right now -  a few strands of your hair, and in return you get a physical object created partially from your own body that will indeed outlast the sun. Or you can request in your will that ashes from your body be used... dealers choice. The advantage of using a few strands of hair while you are still alive guarantees(to you personally) that a piece of you will experience a never-ending journey into the cosmos.

Doesn't matter what happens to your lifegem throughout the rest of human history, it will still be around when the sun novas and gobbles up the solar system. Your little diamond will just be blown away, off on a unimaginable journey through time and space. And if you use a few strands of your hair to create your diamond before you die, you will be able to see and actually touch the little piece of yourself that will still be around when every other trace of humanity is long gone.

That, my friends - to me - is totally cool.




2 comments:

texlahoma said...

That's totally cool to me too.

Nice post.

Bob said...

Yup...

Many prefer to depend on the religious view that their soul will last forever - the "all your eggs in one basket" approach - but there's nothing like a back-up plan you can actually see become reality, particularily when that basket is only a promise.