@RickiTarr With guarantee of a working mind and a pain free, usable body, I could see living for a long time. I don't think I could actually maintain sanity for more than four or five hundred years even in the best of circumstances, though.
@RickiTarr Me, a 23 year old dandy, calling on an old friend to return the book I finally got around to finishing only to discover their bloodline went out 160 years ago
@RickiTarr If it would be like Verna in #TheFalloftheHouseofUsher where you could supernaturally manipulate the lives of bad people & see to their comeuppance, that would be satisfying.
I spent so long battling depression that, now that I've won that battle, I'm really good at fighting the urge to die.
Do I want to live forever? Of course. I spent so long going, "one day, you're going to feel good and if you die now, you're going to be kicking yourself later."
So yeah. My plan is to not die, cuz I don't want future-me to kick my butt.
@RickiTarr No. I've lost a lot of people I've known while alive, and I just don't want to see the end of habitable life on Earth. When I'm done, I'm done!
@RickiTarr Nope. I want my consciousness to transcend the physical plane. As frightening as the unknown might be, all things die. Maybe I’ll be a tree on a beautiful lush planet; maybe my essence will evaporate into the cosmos. My only fear is I’ll be returned to this earth, this modern life. I’m tired of earthly concerns as it is, in 20 years I can only imagine, forget about 100, 200, 1000…
@RickiTarr I don't think we get a choice in the matter, to be honest. The concept of "infinity" is wild. If existence could truly last forever, infinitely, we would be repeated over and over again an infinite number of times as all permutations of existence reiterate, however unlikely.
I can't imagine a finite span of consciousness in a truly infinite universe. Maybe I would prefer that consciousness and the universe each have a definite end, I'm not sure.
"If it was possible to live forever, would you want to?"
I've been thinking about this, your, question and the conditional responses it has elicited, including my own. It struck me that a lot of yes answers were, along the lines of, "but only if...I had the body I chose, the health I chose, the political or climate conditions I would like..." which really is a no. But isn't this what life is, a tomorrow or a millenia about which we do not have absolute certainty; and yet few of us would easily choose to say no to tomorrow. Perhaps my thoughts have been informed by my work with persons whose average age is 80 (even as I am old, myself), who often mourn their physical selves, who struggle with finding a place in a technological world they are no longer part of, who face the loss of loved ones. This is aging. We cannot be afraid of tomorrow, of life, if we are curious and open hearted despite our fears, if we realize each day we have existed proves we already have the strength to have survived years of unknown tomorrows we now call yesterdays. Living takes courage. And each of us already embodies that courage.
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