is living forever all it's cracked up to be? i believe that it is life is a up hill battle. adn eternity is predictable. you can do anything if you have eternity and never have to wory that it was a mistake b/c the next day you can just start over.
i would love to hear anyone thoughts. change my mind if you can
~dani~
I believe living forever would be horrible. Predictablity is not an attractive thought to me. Then life would seem monotonous. And even so you cannot predict everything. Every action has consequences and seeing those you love die would be torture for me. Your actions could have bad effects on them.
Also I think dying gives life meaning. The knowledge that you can die at anytime can give you an appreciation for your life, encouraging you to do more with your life.
Thats just what I think anyway ; )
The last thjing I want is to live forever in this wretched world!
the ancient chinese always regarded immortality as a terrible curse, not a blessing.
think about it, it's not only you and what you do, it's those you care about, you get to watch everything you care for die, everything you have accomplished be forgotten, even your very civilization, crumble to the dust of ages..
but considering Immortality is also NON existant..then why bother worrying about it
I believe that we are all imortal. Our physical bodies are not,,,,, but our spirits are. We have had many physical bodies but we are one spirit or soul whichever term you prefer.
Well things would fall to dust as long as one do not learns better,with immortality one could learn and do all thise things,just imagine all the things one could experience without being constantly botherd by that interruption caused by reincarnation,the link would be hard and not easy to break,just imagine how much the awareness would grow without being interrupted,automaticaly death would loose its meaning by learning and decodeing the "reality".....
I dont find that there is any really good reason to live forever. What is so special in this life. Your family and friends will not be around you so you will be left all alone.
who ever said eternity is predictable? if you lived the same day over for 700 years, would you be able to predict what wouild happen if you changed this or that? can trees tell you whats going to happen to them in 500 years? can the imagination of a man or woman have a limit? is life really that aweful that you would not want another taste of what is so real? the world changes, the people change, the climate changes, the earth changes, YOU change. isn't that worth living for? isn't change, growth, power and freedom worth not only dying for, but living for? sorry, i had to say something different that the other boring posts.
If we lived forever our entire outlook on life would be different on a scale that we might not be able to understand or perceive right now. Our entire social structure would be different; every aspect of life would be different.
If could easily be a curse. If there is no ending than there can never be new beginnings.
On a side thought, criminals would be sunk. Could you imagine life in prison with no parole, for an eternity?
Our entire social structure would be different.
I don't think I would want to live forever. Life is too stressful as it is. Especially being a military wife having to watch all my friends go off to war. Being scared that one day I would lose my soul-mate my reason for living. I couldn't do it.
After pondering this a bit, a thought occured to me. Everything changes but yet nothing does. Living for eternity would be to mundane for me personally. You know that time will age your loved ones until they are but mere dust in the earth. But time is to never age yourself. You might grow wiser and learn more, but will you ever be happy? How could you ever be happy knowing that you are to live forever and you will never change? Never to experience old age, the aches and pains that come with it. It is a lonely way to exist in my opinion. And that in itself is never healthy. Humans are social creatures by nature. We need to have close interaction with others. To feel loved and to love. How would this be possible knowing that those we choose to love will perish as time goes on?
I guess I would have two responses to that question.
If you believe in reincarnation, which I do, essentially you do live forever. You just don't necessarily have the knowledge you acquired in previous lives.
In response to the other part of your statement/question about not worrying about mistakes you made because you could just "start over" , I'm not sure that would be the greatest thing. That implies living without consequences for your actions which is not only unrealistic, but would, in my opinion, be torture if you have any kind of conscience. Personally I've had to "start over" several times in this lifetime already and it hasn't been a picnic! Would I want to do that for eternity? Nahh..I'll pass...
The only reason why in my eyes it would be so terrible is the whole everyone around you dying. But if I could share eternity with someone I loved/could love forever....why the hell not? at least until the REAL end, (of the planet) well that is unless we find a way to go to another planet by then lol. Point is EVERYTHING even something that can escape injury will die so you could live a very long time but not "forever" most likely(if what we are discussing even existed, which it does not). ok sorry about that. But yes id do it so long as I has someone to enjoy it with. Life, even eternal is meaningless if there is no one to share it with.
I would not want to live forever! Even if I had someone wonderful to spend it with! The same things everyday, including the person would get old! In my opinion, it would be miserable!
In one of your posts you wrote:
"Humans are social creatures by nature. We need to have close interaction with others. To feel loved and to love. How would this be possible knowing that those we choose to love will perish as time goes on?"
Everybody dies at some stage, we all know this, we are taught this at a very early age.
Loved ones die before us whether we live for eternity or not. So how does this sway you into not wanting to live for eternity? the only difference in our lives would be that we would see MORE loved ones leave us.
I personally would not like to live for eternity. Life wouldnt be as precious as it is now.
Life, just like right now, is what you make of it. Whether it be a blessing or a curse, or perhaps both....there is a reason why it is non existent. And we are all victims of monotony at one time or another, there are people out there that are so afraid of bodily death. Monotony would be a gift.
i agree with one of the above statements, our believer our souls are immortal....not neccessarily the physical being. Being immortal would be hard...watching time and time again those we love and know pass on.....knowing there is never an end if u r a person in suffer.....
Life is a short period of time, every day the mortals faced new challenges, like you say, battle, meanwhile, Eternity, think about it for a minute, empires, gobermentes, all falls down, but you, can be there to observe, you can get a tons of knowlegde, and maybe discoverd some secrets about life... thinking, be eternal, sounds cool... think in the possibilities of that
i honestly wish i could live forever, i think it would be great to move on and experience so many things, and the amount of knowledge your could gain would be amazing. and to see what your mind and body would evolve to. i wonder if your brain would go crazy with storing all the knowledge you could gain, plus im sure you could be very successful living forever
well I do believe in reincarnation, but i'm of the opinion that this thread concerns physical immortality, so my posts will reflect this.
I'm not saying that living an amazingly long time wouldn't be in many ways good
even if you had to watch loved ones die...
but the word imortality denotes forever,
I heard a great quote a long time ago in a movie dialogue.
"Do you want to live forever?
Ya I think I do...but only for a while."
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birra Venerable Sire (131) Posts: 463 Honor: 0 [ Give / Take ] |
Not even the Earth is immortal, so the question is moot.
Everything in the universe is designed to be recycleable.
Would I want to be immortal? Depends on what that means. When the sun expands and engulfs the Earth would I live through that too?
The thought of living Forever (Eternity) in the same body, well that does not sound like something I would want to do, watching everyone I love die and leave me, how is that even appealing to anyone? I would rather live my life with the ones I love and pass just as they do and then to have my soul return with a new life and renewed lease as it were on the new life so that I may do things different or better if I needed to in the new life. Just my opinon.
We have 2 Billion heart beats to complete a mission.
George Eastman of KODAK fame, the inventor of the hand held camera shot himself in the head after his inventions.
"My work is done. Why wait?"
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birra Venerable Sire (131) Posts: 463 Honor: 0 [ Give / Take ] |
Because maybe his work wasn't done... how did he know for sure?
As a vampire once said in the movies:
"There comes a time for every vampire when the idea of eternity becomes momentarily unbearable. Living in the shadows, feeding in the darkness with only your own company to keep, rots into a solitary, hollow existence. Immortality seems like a good idea, until you realize you're going to spend it alone."
I say, eternity seems like a good idea, but when you really have to live forever, that's when you realize it sucks.
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birra Venerable Sire (131) Posts: 463 Honor: 0 [ Give / Take ] |
Good thing in reality none of us live forever...
And who says you would live forever alone? Still a few billion people in the world...
While I think I would personally decline eternity, I cant deny that I would be tempted at the prospect of having so much time to gather knowledge and perfect myself.
it just depends, what if you could turn the people you love into immortals as well??
immortality could be bad:
you live forever
as most of you tend to see it, it would be endless repetition with out a new beginning
the world changes and so do we as time progresses
immortality could be good or at least fun for awhile if nothing else, noone would understand what has happened in the past. what you've experienced, you could maybe change people's views by your knowledge you could change many different things if you had that much time someone with so much knowledge could change the world for the better after living for 100 or 200 years.
it wouldnt be all bad but it wouldnt be all good...as i've said it just depends
but its NOT predictable ,nothing ever is in this world.
Indeed.
I think one would need to either experience it, or have knowledge from another, in order to make an objective decision.
Of course, neither of these are likely to happen
I would hate having tp live forever. Although I would have an eternity to fix all the mistakes I've made, it would be torture to see this world grow worse through the years, knowing that I could not stop it . . .
I think it would depend....does eternal youth and unlimited resourses come with eternity?
if you can make others immortal to stay with you whats the problem, someone to laugh at all the mortals with. eternal youth and beauty would have to be a must, though, and instant repair of any injury, why not throw flying, super speed and strength into the mix too
If I was not the only Immortal it would be ok cause maybe we could be sure that things did not go bad on the planet and maybe help preserve humanity as a whole and make it a better place, just a thought :)
I'd have a problem living for an eternity, It would be to hard for me to see my loved ones come and go, and I wouldn't want to force them into a path that they may not want to take.
life vs eternity vamp vs human if that was a easy q we would all be one or the other the possibility are endless its all on what you want to do with you life and how loge it would take to accomplish
Immortality has it's up's and downs. There's no real guarantee you'll be spending eternity with someone, so chances are, you'll be alone. A LONG time. Secondly, life will get boring fast unless you find a way to make it amusing from day to day basis. Thirdly.....Could you stand by and watch all those you love die around you? How do you watch your friends and family pass away? How will you react to seeing your friends grow old and die, and there children...and then there children's children. You really have to think about these things. Immortality is friggin HUGE, it could be a big deal if it were given/offered. So yeah, To me, Immortality....I'd have to think about that for a long time.
"We have 2 Billion heart beats to complete a mission."
Ah my old playmate finally makes his return.....just as weirdly incomrehensible as in his last incarnation upon this site.....
between you and simon...I see the forums becoming odd in the near future.. lol
2 billion heart beats huh....no give or take here?
who's doing the counting?
do we just fall over after the big number?or maybe we ascend into the celestial heavens....to become one with the almighty BOB
LOL....I never would wanna live forever ....Even if had someone to share it with me i agree in so many of the comment's about it ...as to second part of ya question we live&learn as are parent's used to tell us i would never take back anything i have done in my life and truly dont think i would wanna ever change anything in that happened ....except maybe the loss of my parent's but yet again we all go so i come to realize in my life after batteling this for long time they where taken cause it was there time....I have so many view's on this topic i could go on ....lol
My short and condensed version is that humans were the first recycling effort
I believe in recarnation, my Spirit will live on. I don't want a old body of 500 years old.
The thought of living forever has sort of mixed feelings to me as well. To be able to see what happens such as what new technologies will be made, what countries will be destroyed or created, and whether or not the ozone layer will be mended would be nice but you would also see your family die and that would undoubtedly make you sad if you are really attached to them. Sorry if that wasn't any help, I'm sort of indecisive as well.
Yes, agreeably so, that knowledge would be such a desired thing. However, the price for such knowledge is incredibly high.
it would be a very painful,lonely existance and I wouldn't want it.
I would not want it, watching everyone around me pass on while I would be stuck in a loop ... I belive in we have one physical body per lifetime and we have experience everday like it is our last... eternity would be a struggle..
I think, at this point in my life, I would at least like to live longer than the average human lifespan. There are ideas of the future: technology, design, etc. These are quite desirable for me. If I could see them, no matter what problems might arise from eternal life, then I would jump at the chance. I would even be ok with the fact that I could possibly have no one to share eternity with.
i beleive that immortality has its pros and cons. Yeah u'll get to see everything that happens in this world and never grow old. but what about those you care about that are mortal. Its the fact of losing everyone is what i dont like about it.
you do have a point deathnitegrl because i know lonliness right now but im talking about my fam.
a good point has been made here a lot, extended life would not be a bad thing, even if you had to watch all your loved ones die, eternity however...is a very very long time
I do not want to die...EVER. The idea of living forever sounds pretty damn good to me. I don't know, I guess I have that fear of the unknown thing going on. I am so scared that when you die...poof...your soul, your very being is gone. I'm sorry that is NOT an attractive idea. I think that if I knew I could live forever, I'd be a little bit more willing to be expressive and aggressive. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's just how I feel. I'm too afraid that something I do will set off the chain of events meant to kill me...so I'm overly cautious all the time. No...I definetly don't want to die.
losing those you love would be and is the worst thing you can go through..it leaves a hole in your heart
"I'm too afraid that something I do will set off the chain of events meant to kill me...so I'm overly cautious all the time."
If this is the case, you may be afraid to die, but are you really living?
Like most folk on here I wouldn't want to live forever. As Birra points out what are you going to do when the earth is gone ?
I don't think you would be alone. After a while you would get used to having to change friends on a rolling system of some sort.
My main problem would be it would need to come with some sort of invincibility. I would hate to live forever in a decaying body, imagine toothache for an eternity or losing a leg in the first century and having to hobble forever.
Its made me think tho
we are eternity, are souls go on forever the shells of are exsistance may fade away but we still exsist
Eternity is your life. We all go on forever. The current state of being, is what you chose to do, perhaps you'll choose differently next tome, as will I.
The current vesels or our current incarnations are mortal, but the souls or spirits live again.
Memories of the past lives may be lost and that I beleive is to safeguard people from knowing.
Now this does in a sense sound insane.
More on the subject living in one body for eternity does sound enticing but only on certain circumstances such as never growing old always living in your prime.
Fighting time is not a wise choice nore is it a battle one can win.
"Living forever, loving forever, eternity is the length of time in order to truly see the answers to our hearts and to endulge in our desires"
One of my favorite quotes.
looking deeper into the subject I beleive it is not a defined yes or no as to wich is better, but more of what you think yourself so weigh the pros and cons and make the decistion yourself. I think thats all anyone can do.
I honestly think I'll have a hard time living to 30. I would not want to live forever.
If you struggle in life now what would you gain from eternity? also for those with lesser good in mind life in prison just got a lot longer...
i would love to live for eternity.
besides i plan to live forever anyhow even live with the horrible consequences with no regret at all.because i have had 0 luck with relationships,money,respect,and people underestimating me,and finally i would have all the time in the universe to both help and correct the mistakes i have made and perfect what i have learned and what i can learn as well.
Death is death, is comes no matter how you might fight it, better to learn and embrace it...
sure losing people is hard, but it is inevitable
(whats worse is remembering past lives and the loss of the people you loved then- kind of makes you feel really old or alone)
I also believe in the soul as immortal...not the body, hell no, my body feels 50+ and I'm only 31, thanks to arthritis and back pain....if my soul has had many loves, and I have had or learnt from lessons in each, then that is my purpose.
However, I also think it is possiblt for someone to exist as a blank, new or empty soul....i saw one called my ex-husband.
man he was empty and just plain stupid.
i do not care what anyone else says living forever would help me a lot i would not have to deal with th human race to often i mean i have already died quite a few times i plan to live forever because i have nowhere else to go but limbo and besides i have a greater destiny than to die and sleep forever
Dark Greetings,
Immortality is great if you have someone to spend it with,But nothing is predictable so whats the point.
Dark Blessing's,
KA
Proud Member Of The house Of Nocturnal Retribution
yes 2 bill beats Dareman
n
it is a computation adjusted from the old 22,000 day average lifespan, taking into account the rate you live. at or below 60 beats per minute.
it is an eternity not in heaven or hell, but a eternity in torture between being pulled between two worlds.
Life is a test, but you could never die to receive your prize and you would be stuck like Tantalus who had to push a boulder up a hill in Greek Mythology and just right when he would get to the top the boulder would roll down again.
There are no happy endings in the middle of our lives, in life there is culmination of achievement and then we require rest.
Yes the human body is adaptable and this is our hallmark as a superior species, but also as we get older our capacity for change becomes less and less as we sink into old habits.
If life becomes habitual, then the only thing you could do is be a hedonist, and enjoy life through the senses.
That is an eternity none would shrug away from, especially if you were impervious to AIDS and you play the field. I assume you could be an amazing lover and then find love, being so free from your obligation to the ideal plane.
BIRRA: The reason why George Eastman shot himself after his miraculous inventions was because perhaps his learnings were too narrow and sometimes people do not have the wide foundation of education to do more. To sit with yourself unable to learn, unablke to impact the greater destinies is an insult to a man who placed red film yellow film and blue film together to allow for color picture taking to happen.
How can you beat that. Once you have done it all, why stick around, life is more of the same, and PRINCE was wrong, there is no joy in repitition.
Especially in a world where you come and go and people are resistant to change, and you life force seems useless. Life has to have more meaning than it being just mean.
But look at the word IMmortal, which really says I'm mortal, so what the two 13th letter of the alphabet in the letter M are smushed together? How does that make you immortal.
Anyone who claims to be immortal, by the wordsmithing root is lying.
And anyways, to conclude, Jonathon Swift of Gullivers travels fame, had characters that were born every thousand years (M in latin is a thousand another term for GRand or 1,000, which some women have a unique perspective on as in "isn't life grand?")
anyways, after a thousand years one immortal was unable to communicate with the ones born before them every 1,000 years, language barriers and all.
Supreme thinking by a great writer in Swift.
even god is ground under the omnipresent weight of the hands of time...
but why break the chain of life .. if i stood aside from that, my life would have no meaning.. just my .02...
D
I am definitely not trying to change your mind, but I disagree with you. I think that it would be terrible to know that you were going to outlive all of your friends, family, and especially if you outlived your husband/wife, and your children. That would be the most terrible thing. I have already outlived a brother and a child, I do not think that I would want to live forever.....
i believe that ur soul does go on for eternity but ur body doesnt, we have many many past lifes and that you should live ur current life to your fullest. and eternity/future isnt predictable, look at past events nobody really predicts stuff that happens. if you live for eternity you wont have friends and family around you, you will be alone but at the same time you can watch how the world changes over time.
Living forever word be god-awful. I could imagine it but I don't want to. Living everyday doing the same things? I mean after a while you've done it all. Then having to live with the things you've done for eternity. Nah I'll stick with my normal life span.
You have interesting thoughts about that... i guess it would really depend on what you mean. when someone says for all eternity that i think means for all that the earth is still here but when someone says for life then i think that it means for as long theres life on this planet.
I think that if you lived for ever that you would run out of things to do. I would end up trying finding ways to kill myself in the end just dor fun.
Yes Abraisha, sometimes bereavement is difficult, but we must continue to live, so many people want to die because losing people that we love is the most devastating thing, so it is better to die first,
but we stick around because life is full of surprises, and this is a good thing
unpredictability of LIFE
I agree with many of you, how painful i t would be to watch all loved ones die, and still be there. wouldn't it be terrrible to forge new relationships knowing all along you would eventually loose them .
the living for eternity is a metaphor for love
all things end especially if you don't
we live after love, and once we lose it we are ambivalent to start something new with someone else.
There is always the chance we will love again, but we fear losing them so we never love at all.
And sometimes the love fear makes you go back to an old love that didn't treat you right, because it is better than no love at all.
In eternity there is no closure I guess.
I used to think living forever would be a terrible thing, but then I found God- and I think everything will be okay. I think all souls live forever, but bodies die. Eventually though there will be a resurection of everyone's body at the end of time.
I think it is the soul that is immortal, the body is just a house to protect it and house it. As for the body living for ever, what to watch people die that you love, to watch the endless hatred and anger the world is full of! To eventually lose all that you are and become an empty shell because your afraid to let people in because you know you will out live them, because you have seen too much... no immortality isn't a gift its a curse! Damned to spend eternity to live and never truly rest... No thanks!
I think that if you live of all eternity, you won't age or die. But the bad thing is that you won't be with the ones that you love. Those who pass befor us. I would be tepted but I wouldn't do it.
Living forever is the ultimate kick to responsibility. There was an immortality thread months ago where we addressed the possible fears of age and death. What I took away from that thread was that people want to experience more in their life. They want to travel more, learn more, see more in their very short lifespans. Many of us are saddled with this totally illogical responsibility where a huge percent of our adult life is spent working in some mundane field to support some nameless corporate board who will most assuredly not improve the world when we are gone.
Immortality would allow us the time to do all the things we want to do. Knowing you could not die would allow us to walk away from something as counter intuitive as our jobs and instead follow our passions because things like rent or food would be unnecessary.
I suppose there are a select few of us who have managed to work our job and our passion together. I suppose that there are those of us who have learned to try to use as much of our lives as possible for self enrichment with reading and travel and life experience. However, I'd say for most of us, we look at the time we have left and think that it can't possibly be enough for all our plans and dreams.
Oh Mephisto, Lord Temptation
Your dancing is divine
Across thin ice we float like angels
Drunk on Heaven's wine
No worries in the here and now
Timeless so you say
So come Mephisto Waltz with me
Let's make the world pay
A drop of blood for every hour
Of responsibility
That mankind's so called wisdom
Didst try to bleed from me
We'll dance across the Lake of Fire
And freeze time's weary stitch
For as they say in the underworld
Mortality's a bitch
I'd live forever IF I could stay young forever. Then I could do whatever I wanted and not hafta worry about diseases and anything like that.
If I had to live forever and be old, I wouldnt wanna do it cuz it'd just be boring.
Downside to living forever would be you hafta see all of your loved ones die :-(
Who would want to live forever, to continue on w/o the ones you love, and watch them die. There is a reason we live here and now and die when we do. So we can move on and try new experiences, perhaps another life. Enjoy each day as if it were your last. But no one should live forever..Back to the earth w/you..
smiles.
That is life people die
if you don't like it then you can't deal with life
living then is hinged to accepting death
therefore if you do not have the emotional capacity for accepting other people's death, then you are not immortal
immortality is achieved through facing death early and often.
The ones who fear death never really live at all
people who accomplish much do so because they want to accomplish something before they die, that is what makes immortality, funny enough.
SatanMist and Vampariah - In theory the two of you are both correct. Everyone should try to experience as much of life as it has to offer. We should all walk away from jobs and homes and travel the world seeking knowledge and experience. Reality tends to require that we strike a balance. We have families or friends and we have homes and possessions and we have jobs and or careers. Few find the strength or the self destructive capacity to wander the world in search of truth. So live every day as if it was your last...sort of. But even then, I would not have learned everything I want to learn. I would not have seen everything I want to see. Live forever...perhaps not...but longer...almost forever...most definately.
If the world were not as it is today, I personally wouldn't mind living for eternity, as long as certain loved ones would be willing to live the same. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to stand wtching them go and knowing that there is no way to join them.
Living forever would not be good. From what I have heard many think its a curse. I dont want to see people around me who I love live and die and I m still here. I would get tired Im sure and just would want to pass to my after life.
I believe living forever would be wonderful. Not only for the many things you could experience, but the people you would meet. I mean you could never feel deeper emmotions for someone or thing since you could live with them for days and days on end. I would love to live forever..
"yes 2 bill beats Dareman
n
it is a computation adjusted from the old 22,000 day average lifespan"
oh man the crap you come out with when I ignore the threads for a while....
I ran the math there, that works out to an average lifespan of 60 years give or take a few days, hate to be the one to have to tell you, but people have been consistently living past their 60's well into the 80's and 90's since the turn of the century, you see there's this thing called modern science, you may have heard of it.... so what that do you your 2billion heart beats calculation....other that chew it up and spit it out...like all the other bogus crap theories you have ever presented....
What the Science Times said was 2 Billion beats.
I didn't check that. I do know however that 22,000 days went to about the age of 70. Your math must have been off topic.
There is eternity in the moment, don't forget, the infinity within. For a grain of sand you lose the entire meal.
I did an interview with a pro photographer for an art book, and he took a travel from Italy to Africa and to South America, and then on the Trans America Highway, to Washington DC and then NYC, in a jeep.
I asked him some questions about the details of the trip, and all he said was:
"You know, if I had stayed in Italy I wouldn't have learned a thing. In that 3 year trip around the Western Hemisphere, I learned in 3 years something that takes 30 years to learn."
Of course the things you learn when you pull into one village to the next is, as you try to secure lodging, and set up your photography exhibition, the wisest people of the village come up to you, and you have conversations with people of grey hair whom teach your hair not to turn white.
This is an immortality of sorts, since there is no immortality anyways, we can live as long as we can, and getting out there and learning from others longevity in an instant.
* * *
This will only sidetrack conversation. Either way...60,70, or 80 years does not an eternity make. The point that Vampariah was originally making with his fairly accurate if outdated heartbeat analogy is that life is fleeting and we should do everything we can in that time.
I still respectfully disagree that it's really feasible in the days of rat race...even if I allow that I've done that to myself by not rushing off to the mountains to commune with the eternal.
"I do know however that 22,000 days went to about the age of 70. Your math must have been off topic."
And again I call into question your status as a former teacher as 22000 divided by 365 equals 60.27 years, give or take a few days for leap years
try using the caculator on your computer before erroneously correcting those who prove you false time and again, just makes you look (more)foolish.
But i do agree with felix's interpretation of your stance, we should be making the most of the time we have, for as the spirit or soul may be immortal, the flesh most certainly is not
Lord Lestat - no unfortunately, I fear that even with fame and world renown, our civilizations collapse and the time of man's written history will likely be wiped clean again. My opinion is that since our very written history is a mere couple millennia old so eternity would seem a very distant goal. I also believe that there were other civilizations before that were wiped clean thus proving that even if we find a scrap of their history, no single person from that time will live on in name or form.
So no I'd still suggest that to physically live for eternity (or a much longer time than currently) would be preferable to all the warm fuzzy feelings I may leave behind when I'm gone. No offense.
Daermon, thank you for looking at the forest and not the trees...however my point was that I didn't think it possible to make the most of our time in the current culture. So I'd rather have my flesh live forever in answer to the original question.
*inhales deeply*
I have put off posting on this topic day after day for several reasons. One, I don't agree with some of the comments in the initial post. I don't agree that eternity would be predictable any more than I believe the normal person can predict the future.
Even if one was to be living out an eternity here on Earth, life would be bound to change from day to day as man made his progress and his blunders. Would it truly be safe to say that time would reach a certain point and the things within it would simply not change anymore? I dare to think not. However, that none of us can truly ever know. That being said, I do believe it'd be a safe bet to say that change is inevitable. How we adjust to it is the factor in question. Regardless, back to the topic at hand...
I don't know about anyone else, because I speak solely for myself when I say the following things.(..yes, that was my little disclaimer. lol.)
If I were to find myself living out an eternity, that would truly be a frightening reality. To be trapped with my demons for more than one lifetime would simply be torturous. True I'd have more time to work out my issues, but what if I couldn't? Then, like I said, I'd be "stuck" with them for a VERY long period of time. It's one thing to be able to get away from a person or thing that frightens you. What happens when that thing is you...and it resides in your own mind? I find that extremely...haunting.
*shrugs* Just a few thoughts of my own...
I said your math was off topic.
More imperative, Dearman, I said for a grain of sand you lose the entire meal,
the moral of the story of the TransAmerican African trip was that what one can learn in an instant how to be immortal.
The tow gentlemen above were bantering about the ambition angle of the life purpose gaining immortality, through the affect on others in our lives.
I do not think that is possible. It is a waste of time trying to teach anyone how to be immortal in an instant. For a grain of sand they lose the entire mane course.
Have a nice Thanksgiving everybody and try not to choke on the wishbone.
"I didn't think it possible to make the most of our time in the current culture."
upon further thought that is a serious consideration, maybe in other times it my have been more possible, or if you were independently wealthy enough to simply live as you choose, but for the greater majority of people there are the worries of rent,food,and family, so the concept of simply doing as you will because you can becomes a nice dream at best, but we should always hold tight to our dreams, however unlikely it is that they might happen, if you let them go then you guarantee they wont happen.
"I said your math was off topic.
More imperative, Dearman, I said for a grain of sand you lose the entire meal,"
You were the one tossing numbers, I was just refuting their validity and correctness
Also I'm assuming you mean i'm seeing one grain of sand instead of seeing the whole beach, because no too many people eat sand, not willingly anyways, point is I do understand your reference
Actually, you are correct Dearman. The proverb is for a grain of salt you lose the entire meal. I don't know where all that sand entered into the picture.
But again, in my personal email to you I would prefer when you attack not the frisbee on top of my roof but the dismantle my foundation from the very bottom. Philosphies are not about the details. Yes some of life is in the details, but not this topic. We are talking in generalities here. I would sincerely like you to topple my pyramid like you used to, so I can learn something here from you.
Through your dichotomy I discovered my dual nature because of your devil's advocacy position, and I want to publicly thank you for making me a better man.
I sounded very smart after leaving the site, because I was able to relate to women better. You are right again, my trouble with women was that I thought they really didn't care about men, or knew anything about us. But because you were my master in teaching dual nature, that there is at least 2 sides to something, I found that women know men better than we do, they really want to get to know us, and it was only in examining the infinity within me and finding the dual nature that I could understand women have a perfect grip of understanding about us.
If women are a stranger to us how can we love them? If love is immortal, and in m,y case my love is immortal, because I write about the women that let me love them, and it makes me love them more, I get brainwashed into loving a woman when I write about her, and for posterity sake she becomes immortal when the whole world reads about this woman I destroyed my life just to have one more moment with her. To lose my immortality for just one instant to be with her to see the ruddy complexion on her face, the skin of Strawberris. But you do not lose immortality when you destroy yourself to be with her, she sees how hard you pang for her, and then she says be my man, and then even if the relationship is over, the love never dies. I think LOve is immortal, and one other thing too, could be the key.
I think travel might somehow be related. To escape the mundane, like the TransAmerican trip moral. We are in bondage to maintaining our props, our rent and such as you say, instead of success maintenence, we should take a privileged look at the world through sabbaticals.
The teaching profession realizes the value of the sojourn, and every seven years you are allowed to take a whole year off.
Teachers are a very important part of the whole learning process, and they are to be afforded certain privileges others would only waste. Teachers after 7 years of teaching take their Master's Degree in graduate school, and then in another 7 years they get their Phd or another Masters Degree, and they can rise to administration and be a teacher of teachers.
(Thank you telling me that I am a bit obscure and that for the most part people don't understand me, Dearman, so I will try to make my outdated references more concrete so even an idiot could understand. I will try to be more clear in the future. I was merely trying to be concise, and I see the whole message gets lost.)
Felix it was not clear in your post, did you do go for a trip, were you able to take a journey from the mundane? I know you are the most avid reader on the site, but if you have learned anything from me, it is you will never find the answer in a book or on the internet. Real people live, they travel, they get out there and experience life on the stoops of the ghetto. In order to live and grow we have to escape our opium dens ensnarled in cable. Felix you are the salt of the Earth, as you said the resident science expert and prodigous poster.
living forever would be cool. i'd miss my friends and family though, it wouldn't be worth it. i'd hate to live forever knowing that evrybody else around me would eventuelly die.
Don't you think immortals could teach immortality to the ones they love?