Mesopotamia+ideas

In //The Epic of Gilgamesh //, the great king is thought to be too proud and arrogant by the gods and so they decide to teach him a lesson by sending the wild man, Enkidu, to humble him. After a fierce battle, Enkidu and Gilgamesh become friends and embark on adventures together. When Enkidu dies from battling a demon animal, Gilgamesh falls into a deep grief. When he recognizes his own mortality through the death of his friend, he questions the meaning of life and the value of human accomplishment in the face of ultimate extinction. Casting away all of his old vanity and pride, Gilgamesh sets out on a quest to find the meaning of life and some way of defeating death. In doing so, he becomes the first epic hero in world literature. The grief of Gilgamesh and the questions his friend's death evokes resonate with every human being who has wrestled with the meaning of life in the face of death. Although Gilgamesh ultimately fails to win immortality in the story, his deeds live on through the written word and so does he.