Questing for Immortality?

What physical works of man seem to have endured time?

Works in stone; sculpture and architecture.

I wonder if Kracklite's core reason to create came from a primordial impulse to live forever?

This is - I think - why animals (including people) invest so much in offspring.

Kracklite had failed (until now; bittersweet) to have children (wife had miscarriages).

Kracklite invested his entire life into being a great architect - but even in this - his highest aspiration - he failed.

So, in the end, all was failure. He never lived up to his dream. His final architectural work was stolen and "deformed" by the man who stole his woman. Even his child would be taken from him. All for nothing; all eaten away by disease and the crassness of people who did not share his vision; ambitious aspirations brought him to the steps of the Parthenon; grasping and humbled.

I seem to recall in the scene where the doctor informs him of his terminal illness that the doc asks how he imagines his end - and Kracklite (I think) - his first reaction is that he sees the conclusion of his life as nothing - his life amounted to nothing. But, that was too hard to hold onto, so he revisioned how he imagined how he would like to see the end of his life (dying in his seventies, successful architect, surrounded by grandchildren); such a dream; unachievable.

Artists in despair - classic stuff.