Immortality

Seeing the world change before your eyes, having the opportunity to do everything you ever wanted, learning everything you could possibly learn, gaining money and power, achieving anything and everything not having to worry about death. Sounds nice doesn’t it? These are just a few of the things immortality would bring a person. Well a few of the pleasures.

This brings me to my question, and the basis for this entry. If you could live forever would you want to? On one hand the world would become your playground. On the other, you would be losing everything. All the people you know and love would die eventually and the new friends you made would die too. Everything you became accustomed to would change. You would be very alone in your life. No one would truly understand those things you had seen in the past and how these things make you feel in the present. I personally don’t think I would want to live without the one’s I love around me, those I call family and friends.

The main reason I see for wanting to be immortal, is to escape death. But why do we fear death so much anyway? Is it because it’s the unknown? And if it is how can you fear what you have no knowledge of? This seems absurd to me. Plato said that death was either of two thing. It is like the most peaceful undisturbed night of sleep you ever had. The other option is that when you die your spirit is free from the restricting misleading body and you end up with all the greats of the world. Both of these seem like great options to me, actually they seem better then life; and besides I really like sleep. Therefore, I see no reason to fear death and I wont fear it. I see my fears of falling into an endless pit and being sung happy birthday to at a restaurant as much more reasonable.

(Plato, The Apology)