Would you want to live forever? (or at least a REALLY long time)

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I thought the answer to this would be pretty much automatic, but a friend of mine has continually made the argument against living forever that it would either be boring, or very sad. I've found out that this opinion is strangely (in my mind) widespread. I can't say i share that opinion but its an interesting take on things.

Also we are assuming fairly good health, not, living for ages in some vegetative or decrepit state.

[GothicRavenGoddess (3)]

you do know that you double posted, right?

anyways... i voted yes

and i agree it would be sad... everyone you know, passes on, before you do..

on the other hand, i'd get to read all the books i wanted to read, and learn what i wanted to learn.. and perhaps make a name for myself.... i'd get to see how ppl and places evolve.....

[sass_in_the_pants]

Yeah, it would be kind of a bummer that everyone died before me, but, hey I'd make new friends.

Though 'forever' seems a mighty long while.

I wouldn't mind living a very very very long time.

[Bernadette]

As long as I had my health and my mind.. I don't know about forever, but live for a long time.

OR, if I could 'freeze' my aging to a certain age -- 28 was a great year for me, then that would be cool to live forever!

I have a fam friend that's 95, still sharp but her body is starting to fail her. And hardly anyone her age - fam or friend - are still around. Sad. On the good side, she is GREAT to talk to .. she's seen and lived so much in her almost century! Great stories about Detroit as far back as the 20's... plus all the change she's lived thru.

[Msterbeau]

Live fast, die young.

[phee]

I could live forever.... I have hobbies.

[Goth Brooks]

I hate my family anyways, so outliving them would be pretty sweet.

And I guess it would depend on the terms of this immortality. Am I invincible? Or just never ending. Can I die by any other means other than the decay of old age?

I would guess that just living forever would turn someone so paranoid that they'd lock themselves away for fear of dying, until that day they snap and walk off a cliff.

The only fear I really have in this world is death, so living forever would be pretty sweet.

[Hellion]

Seeing everyone you know pass on and let alone the idea of this country looking like the movie Escape from New Yorkor The Terminator(apacolyps) would not be a good world to live in,IMO80yeas old is good enough for me

Or how about living in the world when it s like the movie,"Soilent Green"

Edited June 4, 2008 by Darque Metallion

[phee]

I heard and interesting study... if a person didn't die of natural causes (Old age, Disease, etc...) The average person would die of something (accident, war, etc...) after about 250 years (I am a bit foggy on the details but I think thats about right)

[hunhee]

and i agree it would be sad... everyone you know, passes on, before you do..

on the other hand, i'd get to read all the books i wanted to read, and learn what i wanted to learn.. and perhaps make a name for myself.... i'd get to see how ppl and places evolve.....

The problem with living forever, is that you would keep putting off reading all those books you think you want to make time for, and the more books that you read, the more books that are being written. You'll pretty much never exhaust yourself of the resources that you would have available to you. So what I'm saying is, if you haven't read them by now, or make time for them by now, you'll never make time for them. Just an observation.

I have long since told everyone that I will be cursed to see everyone I love die before me. I keep thinking that the way I live my life, this is going to be the case. My family is very small, I don't really make GOOD friends easily (good friends I differentiate from friends/acquaintances), and so yes, my parents are most likely to die before me. I feared that my brother would die before me, that fear is over, he's already gone. Just a short list of people left. It's like I have a checklist, and I just check them off as they go, one by one. I know this is a sad way of seeing it, but it's most likely a greater possibility.. Just because you can "make new/more friends" doesn't lessen the heartache of losing the ones you currently love.

The only fear I really have in this world is death, so living forever would be pretty sweet.

Death is the one thing that I don't really fear. Which is weird, because in the living, I fear the unknown. I figure, as of right now I'm unaffiliated, I die, find out there really is a creator (doesn't matter who it is at this point), I can just be like David Mills and say.. guess what, I studied you more, and read about you more and thought about you more than about 99% of your followers. Chew on that one for a bit.

It's like Angelica Huston in that movie Ever After .. "Darling, nothing is final 'til you're dead, and even then, I'm sure God negotiates."

[Troy Spiral (13)]

you do know that you double posted, right?

anyways... i voted yes

and i agree it would be sad... everyone you know, passes on, before you do..

on the other hand, i'd get to read all the books i wanted to read, and learn what i wanted to learn.. and perhaps make a name for myself.... i'd get to see how ppl and places evolve.....

Did I? I fail at the internet. (Guessing some mod deleted the other post since i only see one now.)

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Also i think at least mildly I'm assuming this "live forever" (or just a hell of a lot longer) idea would be based on science/medicine improving, rather than just magically "you" become the person that lives forever and no one else does. So in that scenario i think the "other people dying off" part would be minimized. Also probably not totally "immortal" just , the ability to live for a long, long ass time.

Procrastination is king, even now i think. But I'll take it. If we had something approaching forever to get it (whatever it is) done, it wouldn't be that much of an issue, since we would , eventually get to it, forever is a long time. If people lived forever they'd also have a hell of a lot more patience, which i think is in short supply.

No matter how motivated i was, nor how much energy i have, there are too many things to do, experience and learn in the world (let alone the whole universe, which if we manage to get off this rock without blowing ourselves up a even more mind-bogglingly awesome place to experience) that we just don't have time to get done in one human lifetime.

I could spend 100 years just reading all the classic books i know I'll never have time to get to, and that's just one small subject, and that's just assuming only the CURRENT classics and not any of the new hundreds of things that come out every day.

Then we've got film, literature in general, art , science, endless variations of human interaction to explore, places to go.... definitely too many wonderful things to fit all into 70 years.

I can make a fairly convincing argument in the opposite direction, based on a poetic description of the "sweetness" of life , the shorter it is, but i think this one above is more likely to be the most accurate depiction. Theres nothing that says 40 or 80 or 100,000 years is the magic number to make things "feel pretty" or "urgent."

[industrial_girl_2000]

I voted NO on living forever. There are several reasons for this:

Call me a sap, but recently I have been watching old "Forever Knight" episodes and see how the main character struggles with his immortality. Not that TV is real or anything, but as I get older, I find that life situations/changes do get more complicated as we go along (that's a story best told over a beer!). When I was in my teens & 20s, I would have wanted to live forever & the answers to everything seemed so simple (even though things "seemed" complicated at the time). In your 30s, life situations get way more complicated. Most of the people you meet are divorced w/kids and/or bitter. They still "look" young, but there are a lot of people with bad attitudes on prozac (which makes for terrible first-dates....another story best told over a beer, LOL)! Very few people seem to be able to "hold on" to that youthful fresh exuberance! So it is the "ATTITUDE" you want to hold onto, not necessarily the "youthful body!"

Also, society leads you to believe that you NEVER want to be older than 30 and that 30-somethings are over the hill. NOT true! There are benefits to being over 30 that you will find out when you get there. I also have 40-somethings who tell me the same thing about their age group.

You will have a wonderfully long & happy life if you adopt one of my mantras: "Growing old is inevitable, growing UP is optional".......

Life should be wonderful at any age. It CAN be if you CHOOSE it!

Be well!

[Hellion]

I voted NO on living forever. There are several reasons for this:

Call me a sap, but recently I have been watching old "Forever Knight" episodes and see how the main character struggles with his immortality. Not that TV is real or anything, but as I get older, I find that life situations/changes do get more complicated as we go along (that's a story best told over a beer!). When I was in my teens & 20s, I would have wanted to live forever & the answers to everything seemed so simple (even though things "seemed" complicated at the time). In your 30s, life situations get way more complicated. Most of the people you meet are divorced w/kids and/or bitter. They still "look" young, but there are a lot of people with bad attitudes on prozac (which makes for terrible first-dates....another story best told over a beer, LOL)! Very few people seem to be able to "hold on" to that youthful fresh exuberance! So it is the "ATTITUDE" you want to hold onto, not necessarily the "youthful body!"

Also, society leads you to believe that you NEVER want to be older than 30 and that 30-somethings are over the hill. NOT true! There are benefits to being over 30 that you will find out when you get there. I also have 40-somethings who tell me the same thing about their age group.

You will have a wonderfully long & happy life if you adopt one of my mantras: "Growing old is inevitable, growing UP is optional".......

Life should be wonderful at any age. It CAN be if you CHOOSE it!

Be well!

Its not just a twentysomething world,Great Post!!

[phee]

Its not just a twentysomething world,Great Post!!

LOL

Yeah... I am not saying it's smart for me to want to be methusila... but it is what I want.

[Msterbeau]

I voted NO on living forever. There are several reasons for this:

Call me a sap, but recently I have been watching old "Forever Knight" episodes and see how the main character struggles with his immortality. Not that TV is real or anything, but as I get older, I find that life situations/changes do get more complicated as we go along (that's a story best told over a beer!). When I was in my teens & 20s, I would have wanted to live forever & the answers to everything seemed so simple (even though things "seemed" complicated at the time). In your 30s, life situations get way more complicated. Most of the people you meet are divorced w/kids and/or bitter. They still "look" young, but there are a lot of people with bad attitudes on prozac (which makes for terrible first-dates....another story best told over a beer, LOL)! Very few people seem to be able to "hold on" to that youthful fresh exuberance! So it is the "ATTITUDE" you want to hold onto, not necessarily the "youthful body!"

Also, society leads you to believe that you NEVER want to be older than 30 and that 30-somethings are over the hill. NOT true! There are benefits to being over 30 that you will find out when you get there. I also have 40-somethings who tell me the same thing about their age group.

You will have a wonderfully long & happy life if you adopt one of my mantras: "Growing old is inevitable, growing UP is optional".......

Life should be wonderful at any age. It CAN be if you CHOOSE it!

Be well!

+1

[sass_in_the_pants]

So it is the "ATTITUDE" you want to hold onto, not necessarily the "youthful body!"

Also, society leads you to believe that you NEVER want to be older than 30 and that 30-somethings are over the hill. NOT true! There are benefits to being over 30 that you will find out when you get there. I also have 40-somethings who tell me the same thing about their age group.

Be well!

Well stated. And, didn't you hear? 40 is the new 20, which must mean that 30 is the new 10, so go climb a tree for goodness sake!

And, by the way, if I could PICK the age at which I freeze, it would be 42. I just have a feeling that will be a REALLY good year for me. Not sure why, just this feeling I have.

[headlessgoth]

I thought the answer to this would be pretty much automatic, but a friend of mine has continually made the argument against living forever that it would either be boring, or very sad. I've found out that this opinion is strangely (in my mind) widespread. I can't say i share that opinion but its an interesting take on things.

Also we are assuming fairly good health, not, living for ages in some vegetative or decrepit state.

living forever means never having to face death. wat a saftey net if you were immortal no disease can kill you.no long suffering the emotional pain could be very trying on the soul.

[Guest GodfallenPromos]

*air guitar's the theme for "Highlander"*....thats my answer....thats all I needed to say

[EAF (1)]

I'll be honest...I am the one vote to not sure.

I don't have enough information to go on here personally. This will all sound very cliche, but if I had to live forever alone...that would be hell to me. Since to me the most important thing in my life is to one day find love...if I kept outliving those I love, then no I would not want to live forever. However if it was the love of my life who could also live forever with me, then yes. I'd love to watch society change and grow and carry on an accurate account of the past...however like I said...going at it all alone, would be a living hell to me.

[industrial_girl_2000]

I'll be honest...I am the one vote to not sure.

I don't have enough information to go on here personally. This will all sound very cliche, but if I had to live forever alone...that would be hell to me. Since to me the most important thing in my life is to one day find love...if I kept outliving those I love, then no I would not want to live forever. However if it was the love of my life who could also live forever with me, then yes. I'd love to watch society change and grow and carry on an accurate account of the past...however like I said...going at it all alone, would be a living hell to me.

I can totally respect that answer!

[wingdazrael]

I'd say no. I want to know what happens after death. I'd rather live whatever my lifespan was meant to be, expirence dying, and the afterlife. And maybe haunt the hell out of some people.

[Homicidalheathen]

On this planet??? The way things are???

You have GOT to be kidding.

No

(my soul or at least some essence of it will I think...I kinda HOPE)

[know_buddy_kares]

I feel a 4th option "Don't Care" would have been apropriate... or at least to me it would have. That's what I would have picked. It's not that I'm unsure, I really don't care. Death will come for all of us, whether it's soon, or of a ripe old age, it's inevitable. And when it happens really isn't our choice (not counting suicide) I'm not afraid of death by any means. I just know to enjoy the ride that is life for however long or short it lasts for me. And when death comes, well.. guess I'll find out what lays behind that mystery then. But until then.. party on.. enjoy life.. that's what it really boils down to, not trying to preserve what life you have, but to have fun with it while you have it.

[Fledermaus]

I want to live a normal long live, like humans do, if I can keep my intellectual strenght and healthiness till I die. I don't want to live longer than beloved people and I DONT want to live longer than my little son.

Eternal live implies finally and simply disdainful force. But what to do with force if nobody is there to love you?

I voted "Not shure" because if beloved ones also would live forever, I wouldn't leave this earth to early.

Fledermaus

Edited June 5, 2008 by Fledermaus