A short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges tells of a Roman soldier Marcus Rufus who drinks from a ldquo secret river that purifies men of death rdquo In time though Marcus realizes immortality wasn rsquo t what it was cracked up to be life without limits was life without significance In fact it rsquo s death itself that gives meaning to life Marcus finds an antidote mdash a spring of clear water After drinking from it he scratches his hand on a thorn and a drop of blood forms signifying his restored mortality Like Marcus we too sometimes
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