Eternity is not something that begins after you're dead. It is going on all the time. We are in it now.
If he's chasing the full restoration of his legacy, he's chasing something that he really can't get.
You go through at least the first two years of Star Trek and you find some amazing stuff. Everything that was going on Gene put into the series. He just put strange costumes on the actors and painted them funny colours and left the same situation in.

