In The Epic of Gilgamesh, wisdom is depicted as the recognition of one's impermanence—that is, one's mortality and vulnerability to the transformative forces of nature. Gilgamesh seeks immortality yet discovers that death and change (or transformation) are inevitable, even for an impressive demigod such as Gilgamesh.

Various characters appeal to Gilgamesh with this nugget of wisdom during the king's desperate and futile search for immortality. The goddess Siduri outright condemns Gilgamesh to failure:

Gilgamesh, where are you hurrying to? You will never find that life for which you are looking. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping.

Instead, she advises Gilgamesh to make peace with his limited time and find enjoyment in that peace:

As for you, Gilgamesh, fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man.

Gilgamesh persistently rejects such wisdom, and as a result, the arrogant king endures a series of physical and emotional hardships, only to be ultimately battered down by the truth held in this wisdom, as spoken by the immortal Utnapishtim: "There is no permanence." Thus, if The Epic of Gilgamesh depicts wisdom as the recognition of (and the willful submission to) one's impermanence, so, too, does the epic depict rejection of wisdom as a path of self-inflicted hardship and sorrow.

Ironically, once Gilgamesh wisely quits his search for immortality, instead investing the remainder of his life engraving his story on stone (a relatively permanent material), Gilgamesh achieves a sense of permanence beyond his death through legend and storytelling.