Do You Want to Live Forever?

 

Do You Want to Live Forever?

 

The question was asked (I have heard the Rabbi mention it in a number of lessons/sermons) if one were to be given the option to live forever but, as a consequence of that election, there would be no future generations born, what would you choose? Infinite life for oneself but no new babies to be born. This is definitely the kind of question that only a rabbi could love as it has no foundation in reality nor does it have a logical answer. One can only conjecture what it would be like to live forever because at this time there is no possibility of living forever. “Forever” itself is an unknowable concept. It is like trying to understand “infinity”.

 

So, to start out I would probably not chose to live forever because it sounds damned scary. Would disease not kill me? Would injury not cause me to bleed to death? Obviously not, because I would keep on kicking “forever” according to the bargain. But would the wound heal? Or would it just gape and perhaps rot? One would look a sight, wouldn’t one, after a couple of centuries of wear and tear? Headaches would be a bummer. I’ve had a mildly persistent headache lately, and Oh! a very persistent backache for weeks. I can’t imagine living with those kinds of aches and pains on top of a gaping hole somewhere from, I don’t know, an accident with a hatchet. On those accounts alone I am not inclined to choose everlasting life.

 

Did you ever see the movie “The Picture of Dorian Gray”? It is about a man who makes the sort of bargain described above (though I don’t think there was an caveat in the movie plot about future generations). Dorian Gray is allowed to live , youthful forever, but the gruesome events and twisted mind-the diseases and mental deformities of Gray appear on a painting DG keeps hidden in a closet. So, he does not appear older but the painting ages horribly.  If I remember the film was shot in black and white and the picture is shot in Technicolor. The contrast is impressive. It is a horrible secret hidden away from his friends. Imagine living forever with the decomposing imprint of old age and illness progressing on ones own body! With no painting hidden away in a secret closet absorbing the changes. Not an attractive proposition. That prospect alone is enough to queer the deal for me. Just let me get old and wrinkly and die like a normal guy.

 

The “no future generations” clause is a whole separate issue. Again, a question from the mind of a rabbi. Why no future generations? Why not, you get to live forever but never get to ride a motorcycle again? Or eat Chinese food? Or you have to teach in Junior College? First of all, the weight of the possibility of living forever must be counterbalanced with the specter of something very significant being lost to make the question remotely valid . Chinese food is just not all that important. But the end of all future generations is like saying the future of civilization. Now that is a proposition equal to Life Forever. It is also another philosophical mind fart worthy of a Junior College philosophy class or a rabbi’s sermon, but just for grins let’s consider it.

 

While I’m living forever and driving my Austin Healey MK 3000 until my body decays or the painting in the closet appears to decompose a la Dorian Gray everyone else is doing what? School teachers have no one new to teach as there are no children being born. Who is going to serve me my fries at Mcdonald's? Who is going to come up to my table at the Olive Garden and say “Hello! My name is Malinda and I’ll be your server today.” Depending on how things are going body-wise and who gets to get in on the deal there just might not be any future for the human race at all as we all might just drop in our tracks and decompose. Or, if we don’t fall apart and life goes on with just the humans presently living on Earth doing all the stuff of the living and there are just no kids …that might work but I’m not sure it would be so great. I like Crosby Stills and Nash but I don’t want to listen to them for eternity. Who would create new music? Where would the future art come from ? Would I never hear the children’s laughter or tapping of a basketball in the street while I’m eating my supper? That is a sort of music I would miss. Would there never be discarded bubble gum wrappers blowing up on my lawn? No more Trick or Treating?

 

This has turned into a very sticky question. I am no rabbi or a philosopher. I am just an old guy getting older and I’ve spent enough time contemplating living forever. It is 7:45 am and I have to figure out what I am going to do with this one day that’s been served up to me right now. A few precious hours of breathing and eating and walking my dog and, perhaps, showing the children outside on the street my favorite basketball move, the“hook shot”.