Living for ever?

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Every day that you look at newspapers you find some news about the fight against maladies. They are ubiquitous though often contradictory and putative. More fibers, less fibers, less alcohol, but a little alcohol may lessen some danger. And the research. Research is dedicated to every problem: weaponry, marketing, automobiles, all kind of branches of production etc. But news about research that appear in the newspapers are 90 per cent about the effort to prolong life and delay death. This is what interests the reader of news. But what about good life in a pregnant meaning? The is an absolute disproportion about talk about prolonging life at any cost and any effort to make life decent, valuable, to eradicate conflict and war at its roots, to discuss about right and wrong. Even discussion about religion is conducted in a superficial gross fashion. Pro life, pro choice? Some form of literalism always prevails: what some sacred book says?
All this is confusing and brings nowhere. Contemporary life is so complicated that it’s really difficult to extricate formulas for a good life. In place of this we are bombarded by crowded bulletins about fighting death exclusively through medicine, or medical research that sometimes is contradicted the day after. Are we sure that this is not the sign that we have given up any interest in a good life. And when time comes (it always comes) in a decent way of dying, even if no one wants to think of it?

I had a conversation with a friend about this subject just the other day. This hunt for the prolongment of life at all costs... scientists reckon that future generations will live to maybe 150.

Three things occured to me about this. Firstly it will only be the rich folk who attain this long life. How can people think that this is a good thing, when millions of people in poorer countries don't even have clean drinking water and have a life expectancy of under 40. There would be such a huge discrepancy between rich and poor, even more so than currently, which makes this ideal of extended life for some, more than distateful. Plus, the obvious question of population growth which is never discussed in relation to this issue. If people are living longer where is food/resources/space for everyone?

Perhaps the decline of traditional religion has meant that life has more importance that it used to have. Because people no longer believe in an afterlife, so this life is all there is and every second must be fought for before we go into oblivion. (I don't personally agree with this view btw)

I get the feeling that it's somehow to do with the rejection of the body, in a way. That the body is 'not allowed' to get sick, to 'malfunction', to age. Maybe we live too much in our heads these days that we are in danger of losing the mind-body connection, and see the body as just a vehicle for carrying around our brains.

I read that Disney had his head cryogenically frozen so in the future he might be brought back to life. It's all a bit Dr Frankenstein isn't it.

As an aside to this topic, a few weeks ago I saw a documentary about George Melly, the musician and bon viveur who died recently. He was so full of life. He smoked, he drank, he had many lovers both male and female...he seemed almost larger than life and determined to pack in as much experience as possible. While I wouldn't want to live like that (for one thing I've not got his constitution, lol, it would kill me very quickly) he sure knew how to live and I imagine that if anyone told him that if he moderated his lifestyle he could live longer, he'd have blown a raspberry at them.

If that's true, suicides will quadruple.

I'm actually looking forward to the day when I 'move on'.

I didn't know Melly as a jazzman. The obit of the Independent is very amusing, and the way he lived is probably the funniest possible. And he reached 80 refusing to be cured for his lung cancer. I would say an exemplary life, without irony.

The thought of living well beyond 70 or 80 just doesn't sound good. I don't know, I guess when I think about it you go through life losing loved ones, usually family and friends are about the only things that really lend much to this existence, and to think that in your years of your worst health that you could prolong your elderly years to 150 - don't know, it just doesn't sound like my kind of thing.

Even if youth could be stretched and even if those who really think we go to oblivion after death are right, I still don't see how this existence, as is, is better. You look at the human condition, the global bloodshed, the ignorance that abounds which seems to leech and steal so much of what people's lives could be, if that's all left the same it almost sounds more like extending a jail sentence. Not that I'd go out and chase death but to be perfectly honest most of my own goals are to make my life as bearable as I can until that point comes naturally - sometimes I wish sooner than later.

The idea of living till 150 is just ludicrious. In order to do that we would have to work at least till we're 120 years old because social security cannot support the entire population for 80+ years past the current retirement age.

But one has to ask about quality of life. Maybe they can plug people into machines and pump them full of drugs but who would want to live like that just so they can reach 150.

In a age where people are getting arthritis and joint replacements in their 30's why would they want to live 120 more years in severe pain? And arthritis is sheer pain, daily and non-stop.

Life is so sad and boring now and nothing to look forward to that I don't even want to live to be old. Life sucks. Who wants to live 150 years in this hellhole called Earth?

I'd totally want to live longer if it could be a decent quality of life. Mainly because I don't really believe in an afterlife, so death scares me in its finality, and I really really want to figure out what humanity figures out next lol. Imagine all the new technologies. I want to see how humanity meets its downfall too, lol, but that's pretty morbid.

I plan on living forever. So far, so good.

Why be scared of the inevitable though, if anything when you let that fear control you it takes the life you have, right now, away. Just a few weeks ago I had a REAL close brush with death, had my appendix blow out on me when I was out of town, got to the OR just in time, spent a week in the hospital recovering from perotinitis, and while all that I went through catheters and all was pretty painful it made me even less afraid. If there is nothing hereafter, still, that's a 50/50 breakeven, this world - particularly for aspies - is 70% effort and 30% product, meaning you'd be at your best - especially as violent as this world is and how it life can be taken at any time, and far happier just by knowing that while you do your absolute best while your alive to keep your existence as good as possible, death is the ultimate vacation from the struggle. I'm in no way shape or form condoning death, just saying that you shouldn't let your best self be contained, at any point, by any fear of it - life in and of itself, when you think of it, is a joke - kind of a morbid one at times but still that's kind of what it is.

It's a good point.

I think that for all the choices we have now, that no other generation throughout history has had, our lifestyles are more homogeneous than they've ever been. It's so complex it's almost impossible to navigate a unique, conscious path.

I would not want to live that long. Old age is not what it's cracked up to be.

I expect to be living forever, but not in this existence. I strongly believe in an afterlife and I also believe it will be much better than this one (hey, I live in hope).

I can't see the attraction of living for a long time in this life. Many people who outlive the old 3 score years and 10 are frail & lead almost a non-existence and it is the miracle of modern science, modern hygiene, plentiful food etc which keeps them going.

I suppose one advantage of getting past 65 would be not having to deal with the guff that life throws at you when you have to earn a living etc, but probably only if you've managed to build up a comfortable retirement package.

I see the next 25 years before retirement as 25 years of horror. I'm surprised I don't wake up screaming most mornings. I just wish I could have even 1 week free of all the crap I have to deal with on a daily basis.

Sorry, bit of a rant I know, but I'm having a crap week and it's only midday on Monday

I hope your week gets better Cernunnos!
Do you have a vacation coming up to look forward to at least?
I have taken off the week of Christmas

I used to take the odd sick day when I worked, if it was all getting a bit much
Just a suggestion

In the public service here in Oz, that's often referred to as a "mental health day".

These are the kind of problems that pop up for politics and administration. " the refusal of patients to die according to actuarial schedules"


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/us/27 ... =permalink