Scythe

When Citra begins her apprenticeship with Curie, she fines that Curie is less structured in her approach to selecting people to glean that Faraday was. As they walk, Curie asks her to observe people who seem stagnant, or those who seem ready to be finished with life. She sees it in the way they walk or in their tattered and scuffed clothes. She sees it in their eyes when there is no energy left. Curie’s journal reveals more of her thoughts on stagnation. Without the pressure of impending death, humans have less urgency to strive and struggle. There are fewer reasons to pursue education, or art, or to save money, at least on any given time frame, because if one can expect hundreds of years of life, procrastination becomes easier to justify. Progress for its own sake, and learning for the joy of learning, have been vanquished just as death has. The more time Citra spends with Faraday and Curie, the more she comes to appreciate the galvanizing effect that mortality has on those who wish to express themselves, to thrive, and to avoid stagnation. Immortality does not blatantly encourage people to stop aspiring, but it makes it easier to do.