_how to stop time _, a novel by matt haig, comes to mind. One of our favorite books. The mind that starts to hurt from too many memories (happens about age 900, if this memory serves).
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900?! I must be weak. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about those who are no longer with me and I’m not quite 900 years old yet :D
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I doubt that would be linked with any medical procedures, it’s out fantasy, no medicine ever can just keep us forever without restarting the body or something like that. You discuss common themes in literature, but if we look as if it’s the reality, having eternal life means loosing regular mortal feelings, there’s no fear of death, so there’s little need for many emotions, and I’m pretty sure people will gladly stay away from any children if they can fly the galaxies and visit other planets. Who would care what happens with the planet if you can visit and live on any? You can just sit and wait or create your own technologies, you have all the time in the world! Where all the life on Earth is not even a grain of sand both in size and really in a meaning. And I’m sure if you ask any of us on our deathbed if we want to live more, without suffering, I doubt anybody would say “nah, I don’t want to live anymore, only losers do that”.
I’m a loser then :)
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No person will live forever. Period. You might be able to live longer than most (or shorter), but no being will be able to live forever. That’s why I believe you should spend every passing minute of your life wisely, and try to make positive changes around you. You might leave any time, anywhere.
Improved lifespans have mostly been linked with advancements in medicine, as well as diets, sanitation, etc. There are serious – or at least well-funded – researchers working on the issue of “ending aging” with their longterm vision being for humans to live “indefinitely”. I agree with you, though, that this is a fool’s errand, part of the fantasy of the wealthy that they can control the uncontrollable and prevent the inevitable. We would be better to focus on the real and present problems that face us right now, including preventable disease, the climate and biodiversity crises, and crushing inequality perpetuated by compromised political and media institutions.
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There has also been improved average lifespans because infant mortality has been reduced. In 1800 the average lifespan might have been, I dunno, 60 but that was because infant mortality was so high bringing down the average; people still regularly lived to 95 etc
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Living forever … yeah, thats going to be a hard pass from me 
While life has its fun and exhilarating moments, these can’t possibly ease the burden on one’s soul from all the hardships, loss, disappointment and betrayal one inevitably experiences. I feel like I was born to fulfill a vaguely defined objective, like leaving a legacy for nature conservation. Once I feel I’ve achieved this, atleast to a far enough degree, I probably won’t be as resistant to the concept of passing on and going into the forever sleep with the rest of my loved ones
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Interesting replies. I see that some people took the “forever” part more literally than I meant it. I chose the thread title based on the Queen song, but then I was discussing whether I would want to live to 120.
This was what I was trying to express with my story about the lake – or non-lake, as the case may be. When you realize that you are standing on the bottom of a lake, and are completely dry, that does something to you. What it did to me was make me think of all the things I would prefer not to live to see – things that may occur during my lifetime, even if I don’t reach 120.
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Speaking of a Day 0, that day is pushing nearer than most are willing to admit for the entire Colorado River basin. And it’s barely even making mainstream news in the US - why? It’s a major ecological and humanitarian crisis everyone is just ignoring!
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When googling a river and half of suggested questions are about it drying up, that’s the sign.
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I don’t want to live forever because I miss my Dad too much
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Your remark about the dried-up lake reminds me of the history of the Etosha and Makgadikgadi Pan, both the salt pan remnants of once vast ancient lakes in southern Africa.
These lakes dried up just mere thousands of years ago, when geologic changes, possibly caused by shifts in tectonic plates, caused the regions to become drier (with the Zambezi river possibly diverted into its modern drainage course in Makgadikgadi’s case).
As incredible as it is, the current Okavango Delta is probably a shadow, a small glimpse, of what the region from Etosha across to northern Botswana may have once been like at that time.
I think that in my personal case at least, the longer I were to putatively live, the more I would see that change is just the way things are, and as beautiful as they are currently, no lake or region or ecosystem will last forever. Canada is full of lakes today but was mostly under a mile-thick sheet of ice 20,000 years ago; some Australian aboriginals had an oral tradition of how Fitzroy Island used to be connected to the mainland before sea levels rose and turned it into an island..
That said, intellectual understanding and emotional acceptance are two vastly different things. I know that if I lived long enough I would definitely mourn the eventual natural erosion of iconic Table Mountain, which has always been such a mainstay of my life from young and has always been there in the background. So I hear you 100%
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Don’t know about forever (whatever that even means), but 400-500 years would be nice - there’s just so much to see and do, and I always want to know what happens tomorrow.
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With any luck, we’re not sleeping, but out there exploring the universe in minute detail.
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