I've decided I don't want to live forever. Ok, I know, it's not exactly one of the options open to me right at the moment, but with all the research being done into the Human Genome, there is always the possibility that they could stumble across the right gene.
So why don't I want it? Well let's assume this is a vampire type-immortality. You don't get sick, you don't age, you don't get flabby bits, eternity in a bikini! If you don't eat you don't die. If you get fat, you can lose weight without being ugly afterwards, and if you do die (say in a meat-grinder associated accident), you don't come back disfigured, you either die, or you return whole. So you don't have to worry about all that crap. Hey, your legs even shave themselves. And everyone has it. Oh, and the earth is endlessly expanding so population isn't an issue...
So what then? You pay off the mortgage, and then go on a trek to discover your inner self. You don’t discover it, but hell, who cares? You settle down for retirement after a lifetime of work...
And realise that money is gone at 89. Ooops, back to work then. But by this time, keyboards are out of date, all the young, hip things have chips imbedded in their brains and wave their arms around. You have to learn a new skill, you haven’t had a chip because you were trying to make your money last. Assuming people are still having kids, you're an old doddering fool. So what then? No longer can you go back to the highly paid job you have, so you get shop work. You can't afford to retire, or you daren’t, so where does that leave you?
Perhaps all we'd do is work a few years, then take time off and do what we want. How long before you've done everything? And forget about being famous, we'll just recycle all the old faces. And even if you are famous and make a pile, what then? Will the money last forever? Will you end up becoming another recycled face, getting more and more desperate as younger people appear...
And just think of the marriages! You and your love get bored, and go for a younger model. But they want kids...something you had left behind half-a-century before. With the prospect of this happening again and again...
But I think the worst thing, apart from everlasting employment is that as we get older, most of us tend to get thin in the brains department. Ideas no longer flow like they should, we slow down. I recently had a terrible bout of insomnia, it lasted for years as my life got amazingly screwed up. I've just started to realise how much that all affected me now I'm coming out of it as my brain is alive with ideas. But could that be like getting old? That eventually the ideas die in you.
And we get tired. I saw my grandmother die in tiny stages, each time I saw her she was less and less. Perhaps if we stay strong that wouldn't matter, but what if it's not a physical thing? What if it's the soul? I can think of few people who could watch the world change unrecognisably without starting to get jaded. We are nostalgic now for the past, can you imagine if that melancholy took over your life if you lived forever?
And there is another side to this. If we could recover from most things and not die, imagine what we could end up doing to each other as a result. Sex would be a minefield as constantly jaded souls tried to find some way of exciting themselves, if just for a moment. A good example of what we may be like can be seen in Dead Girl. But please, watch with caution, it's a horrible movie!
So I'm happy to live my 4 score and 10, just so long as my love is by my side.
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