Just statistically we’re all going to get damaged beyond repair eventually, whether getting hit by a bus all at once, or accruing DNA damage over time on a cell-by-cell basis. Nothing lasts forever, I mean fuck, the sun’s going to burn out eventually.
And y’know, short lifespan = lots of evolution. Planned obsolescence keeps a constant demand for the latest model, without which we’d all still be bacteria. Adapt and grow, and move into the space vacated by your dead ancestors. Immortality is a hell of a dead end, ironically enough.
Also, ever been to disneyland?
You get there in the morning and you are HYPED. There’s all these things to look at and do omg. The idea of leaving when you just got here is too horrible to even imagine.
But as the day wears on into afternoon, the FOMO slowly thins out. You’re getting kind of tired, sitting down seems nice, you certainly don’t want to go yet, but you’d be more disappointed than distraught if you had to.
By late afternoon, your feet hurt, your leg is all sticky where someone dropped milkshake on it, everything’s looking kind of the same, oh yay another queue for another ride, come on lets make ourselves enjoy it - but honestly your enthusiasm is starting to require effort, and the grade of emergency needed to justify going home early is dropping quite rapidly.
Come night time, you’re tired, you’re exhausted, you don’t really care, you’ll stay for the fireworks I guess, but that’s mainly for everyone else’s sake. You never want to see sugar again, you just want to go home, take your shoes off and stare at the ceiling. You had a good day, but you are done.
I’m rapidly approaching 5pm, and honestly if I learned I had something terminal, I’d only really be sad for my family, not for myself. I’ve certainly got no plans or desire to go yet - but ehh. I’ve done most of the things, and we’re getting into diminishing returns territory here.
You tell me I need to do this forever, I’mma scrag you.
Man, you said it way better than I did. I love your metaphor.
I kind of think a lot of this has to do with the combined physical stamina deterioration and loss of hormones. If our bodies stopped aging at, say, 30-ish, I don’t know if we’d get quite as world weary. Eventually. Statistically, dying from mishap would prevent it from going on forever. The author Asher Royce has a universe where people are effectively immortal; there’s a common theme that around 200, people go through a second mid-life crisis where they become highly risk-seeking; they take up risky hobbies, like wingsuits or free-climbing; some large percentage of the population never make it through this phase. It sounds like a reasonable prediction, to me.
Just statistically we’re all going to get damaged beyond repair eventually, whether getting hit by a bus all at once, or accruing DNA damage over time on a cell-by-cell basis. Nothing lasts forever, I mean fuck, the sun’s going to burn out eventually.
And y’know, short lifespan = lots of evolution. Planned obsolescence keeps a constant demand for the latest model, without which we’d all still be bacteria. Adapt and grow, and move into the space vacated by your dead ancestors. Immortality is a hell of a dead end, ironically enough.
Also, ever been to disneyland?
You get there in the morning and you are HYPED. There’s all these things to look at and do omg. The idea of leaving when you just got here is too horrible to even imagine.
But as the day wears on into afternoon, the FOMO slowly thins out. You’re getting kind of tired, sitting down seems nice, you certainly don’t want to go yet, but you’d be more disappointed than distraught if you had to.
By late afternoon, your feet hurt, your leg is all sticky where someone dropped milkshake on it, everything’s looking kind of the same, oh yay another queue for another ride, come on lets make ourselves enjoy it - but honestly your enthusiasm is starting to require effort, and the grade of emergency needed to justify going home early is dropping quite rapidly.
Come night time, you’re tired, you’re exhausted, you don’t really care, you’ll stay for the fireworks I guess, but that’s mainly for everyone else’s sake. You never want to see sugar again, you just want to go home, take your shoes off and stare at the ceiling. You had a good day, but you are done.
I’m rapidly approaching 5pm, and honestly if I learned I had something terminal, I’d only really be sad for my family, not for myself. I’ve certainly got no plans or desire to go yet - but ehh. I’ve done most of the things, and we’re getting into diminishing returns territory here.
You tell me I need to do this forever, I’mma scrag you.
Man, you said it way better than I did. I love your metaphor.
I kind of think a lot of this has to do with the combined physical stamina deterioration and loss of hormones. If our bodies stopped aging at, say, 30-ish, I don’t know if we’d get quite as world weary. Eventually. Statistically, dying from mishap would prevent it from going on forever. The author Asher Royce has a universe where people are effectively immortal; there’s a common theme that around 200, people go through a second mid-life crisis where they become highly risk-seeking; they take up risky hobbies, like wingsuits or free-climbing; some large percentage of the population never make it through this phase. It sounds like a reasonable prediction, to me.