To be Immortal
This topic has been covered in multiple movies over the years, but it is still something that fascinates me. Most people think it would be great, and yes it has it pros but it also has its cons.
On the pro side, you would get to see history, the passing of great vast amounts of time far beyond that of the human experience. You could gain huge amounts of financial wealth. Just the fact that you can live longer than everyone else means you can earn for longer. Wouldn't it be an amazing thing to wake up tomorrow and say "that last century was amazing". But to me it would be the attraction of seeing massive changes in the world around me. Living through and experiencing mans development both good and bad. Not being able to die would mean you could learn so much, experience so much.
There is a bad side. The hardest one I would think to get used to is that everyone you ever know, friends, lovers etc will all die before you. Even worse is that you will never ever be able to forget them. Being immortal would be difficult on the practical side of things as well. You would have to be reborn every 80 or so years. That means creating a new identity, one that would fool nearly everyone. The wealth mentioned above could certainly help there, but it could also be a yolk around your neck. Given how closely transactions are monitored, you could be caught out by simply transferring your own money.
Begin caught out, could also be a very bad thing. Could you imagine that scientists that would want to examine you, to find out why you are immortal. You could conceivably be incarcerated indefinitely, after all being immortal makes you inhuman. Why do I say that ? Well to live is to die, from the moment we are conceived we are racing to the moment we take our last breath. It is the human experience. More than that our society is built on the fact that we will one day pass away, we have rituals in place to mark both death and birth, to a point where we celebrate each year of our life by having a birthday. To be immortal takes all of that away.
It also takes away something that is both distressing and a basic human right. That is to take ones own life. If you are immortal you cannot die even when you want to. Immortality could be a greater punishment than any death penalty dished out by today's society. Imagine a judge sentencing a killer not to death, but to life in eternity. Forever locked behind walls, forever stuck with no where to go, in an environment that we could effectively make as nasty as possible.. Fear of death would not be a reason to stop escape but eternal torture may be.
On the pro side, you would get to see history, the passing of great vast amounts of time far beyond that of the human experience. You could gain huge amounts of financial wealth. Just the fact that you can live longer than everyone else means you can earn for longer. Wouldn't it be an amazing thing to wake up tomorrow and say "that last century was amazing". But to me it would be the attraction of seeing massive changes in the world around me. Living through and experiencing mans development both good and bad. Not being able to die would mean you could learn so much, experience so much.There is a bad side. The hardest one I would think to get used to is that everyone you ever know, friends, lovers etc will all die before you. Even worse is that you will never ever be able to forget them. Being immortal would be difficult on the practical side of things as well. You would have to be reborn every 80 or so years. That means creating a new identity, one that would fool nearly everyone. The wealth mentioned above could certainly help there, but it could also be a yolk around your neck. Given how closely transactions are monitored, you could be caught out by simply transferring your own money.
Begin caught out, could also be a very bad thing. Could you imagine that scientists that would want to examine you, to find out why you are immortal. You could conceivably be incarcerated indefinitely, after all being immortal makes you inhuman. Why do I say that ? Well to live is to die, from the moment we are conceived we are racing to the moment we take our last breath. It is the human experience. More than that our society is built on the fact that we will one day pass away, we have rituals in place to mark both death and birth, to a point where we celebrate each year of our life by having a birthday. To be immortal takes all of that away.
It also takes away something that is both distressing and a basic human right. That is to take ones own life. If you are immortal you cannot die even when you want to. Immortality could be a greater punishment than any death penalty dished out by today's society. Imagine a judge sentencing a killer not to death, but to life in eternity. Forever locked behind walls, forever stuck with no where to go, in an environment that we could effectively make as nasty as possible.. Fear of death would not be a reason to stop escape but eternal torture may be.
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