Imortality...but at what cost?

There is an episode of an old science fiction TV show in which a pool hustler racks his brain coming to terms with the fact that he will never be as great as his idol who has passed on. He wishes he could play just one game against his idol to prove his worth. At that his idol walks into the pool hall and plays him for the highest stakes of all. Those stakes? Immortality.  A prophet who may or may not have been the son of God (depending on your religion) was scourged and crucified for it but to the average man it remains elusive.

        Desi Arnaz was a Cuban bandleader in the 1940s who married a redheaded actress/model and comedienne named Lucile Ball. He would have died unknown to all but diehard fans of samba music were it not for the fact that someone offered his wife a TV show in the 50s.  In those days television programs were live but many commercials were filmed to be aired between acts of the show and between shows. Desi got the brilliant idea of filming television shows so that they could be aired at later times. He also had the idea of putting multiple cameras on the floor of a soundstage to capture the action from several angles.
       In other words he invented multiple camera shoots and the television re-run and became a wealthy man in the process. Ask anyone under 30 who he is and most won't even know that he was on a tv show much less what he did. In his lifetime he was rich and famous and but as the generation who remember "I Love Lucy" (the show he did with his wife Lucile Ball) age and die off eventually so will he.
           Does it matter in the end? Desi could wind up like a brilliant English Business man who went from being a humble plumber to being knighted. He didn't invent the flush toilet, another Englishman by the name of John Harrington did that, BUT this man got a contract from the British Royal family to modernize the plumbing in Buckingham Palace and a great deal of London's sewer system. His name has become a crude euphemism for a place to use the toilet. While it's doubtful that Desi Arnaz name will ever become a verb Sir Thomas Crapper now belongs to the ages.

          If you're wondering what happened in out pool game. The legend defeats the challenger and the challenger resigns his fate and is prepared to go to the great hereafter. His idol laughs and tells him essentially  No, you don't die today, but you will and your name will die with you. Had you beaten me you would have lived forever.