In 1992 I attended a dinner held by Alcor’s people to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the cryosuspension of James Bedford, who has managed to stay frozen after all these years and currently resides at Alcor.
Mike Darwin gave one of his characteristically passionate and learned speeches at this event, where he invoked Joseph Campbell’s ideas popular at the time about the Hero’s Journey. As I recall it, Mike said that James Bedford, an ordinary man, went on a fantastic journey across time to an unknown future, in effect becoming a new kind of mythic hero. Some day, Mike said, Bedford the myth might contribute to reconstituting Bedford the man.
Bedford hasn’t exactly become a household name, but then his suspension happened before most of today’s Americans were born. Kim Suozzi’s struggle and cryosuspension, by contrast, has happened in our awareness and in a different media environment. She may have the potential to become a kind of mythic heroine for the millennial generation. And I would certainly like to see Suozzi the myth become Suozzi the healthy, whole young woman again.
We just need some poets to tell this myth in compelling ways. Stephenie Meyer has demonstrated that a market exists for stories about ordinary mortal women of Kim’s generation who become “reverse Arwens” by rejecting aging and other human limitations.
Steven B. Harris, MD, also wrote about the repurposing of mythological tropes for cryonics purposes years ago in his essay, “Cryonics And The Resurrection Of The Mythic Hero,” which you can read by scrolling down on this page:
In 1992 I attended a dinner held by Alcor’s people to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the cryosuspension of James Bedford, who has managed to stay frozen after all these years and currently resides at Alcor.
Mike Darwin gave one of his characteristically passionate and learned speeches at this event, where he invoked Joseph Campbell’s ideas popular at the time about the Hero’s Journey. As I recall it, Mike said that James Bedford, an ordinary man, went on a fantastic journey across time to an unknown future, in effect becoming a new kind of mythic hero. Some day, Mike said, Bedford the myth might contribute to reconstituting Bedford the man.
Bedford hasn’t exactly become a household name, but then his suspension happened before most of today’s Americans were born. Kim Suozzi’s struggle and cryosuspension, by contrast, has happened in our awareness and in a different media environment. She may have the potential to become a kind of mythic heroine for the millennial generation. And I would certainly like to see Suozzi the myth become Suozzi the healthy, whole young woman again.
We just need some poets to tell this myth in compelling ways. Stephenie Meyer has demonstrated that a market exists for stories about ordinary mortal women of Kim’s generation who become “reverse Arwens” by rejecting aging and other human limitations.
Steven B. Harris, MD, also wrote about the repurposing of mythological tropes for cryonics purposes years ago in his essay, “Cryonics And The Resurrection Of The Mythic Hero,” which you can read by scrolling down on this page:
http://www.alcor.org/cryonics/cryonics8809.txt