Who Wants to Live Forever?

There's no time for us.
There's no place for us.
What is this thing that builds our dreams, yet slips away from us?
Who wants to live forever...when love must die?
- Brian May

As a child, like most children, I had my fascinations. History, society, technology and the future were the topics that most occupied my young mind. You see, for as far back as I can remember, I have felt like a man out of time. I have never felt that I fully belonged in this time in Human history. If you ever read a story or watched a Twilight Zone episode that involved someone who was suddenly displaced in time, that is how it feels to be me. I know. I'm frigging weird. I've learned to live with it.
I have always imagined what it would be like to go back to various points in history and see, firsthand, what it was like to live through those times. I have also wondered what it would be like if I could go far into the future and see how things turn out for us. This last musing naturally led to thoughts of immortality. What would it be like to live forever? To be able to watch it all unfold, see how (or, perhaps more appropriately, if ) we made it in one piece. Will we survive ourselves? As I have grown older, I have not lost my fascination with history or society. I have found, however, that my fantasy about living forever has waned. Understand, I'm not talking about eternal life in Heaven or Hell, nor am I talking about the eternal life in a Paradise here on Earth, like the Jehovah's Witnesses believe in. I'm talking specifically about the idea of living forever in the world as it is and as it shall become.
With the passage of years, two things have happened that have put me off the idea of being immortal. First, after much observation and contemplation, it has become clear to me that our world will likely never see an era of marked improvement. This planet won't get any cleaner. It is not one of our goals to reduce pollution. The damage we are doing to our planet will never diminish, mainly because not enough of us are at all concerned about the environment we create for ourselves and our progeny. Some of us don't even believe that pollution is bad. Many believe that the Earth and the resources upon which we depend are impervious to contamination, damage or destruction and even if they aren't, we are. This is nothing short of stupidity but it is a widespread and proudly held stupidity, therefore it is likely to be a part of our world view until the very end. There are people, many of them in undeserved positions of power, who could sit on a melting block of ice and swear that it is growing instead of shrinking. That they could do so vehemently and with a straight face does not bode well for our future.
From a societal perspective, the future is even more bleak. There will never come a time when the majority of us will be willing to put aside all the differences we create and imagine in order to do what is best for the only race that ultimately matters, the Human race. Humanity is determined to resist the idea that we are all one People and that we need to see ourselves and each other that way in order to ensure our own survival. If survival depends on accepting each other, caring for each other and cooperating with each other, and it does, we would rather welcome our own extinction with open arms than put aside our petty bullshit and save ourselves. Humanity's unparralleled ability to be deliberately obtuse will most definitely be our undoing because, to most of us, this outcome is preferable to exercising the humility necessary to let go of our many excuses for hating anyone who is even slightly different. Over the years, it has become clear to me that I have no desire to see how this ends, any more than I would want to watch a schoolbus full of first-graders hurtling over the side of the Grand Canyon. I know how that will end. There is no reason to watch it.
The other thing that has quelled my desire for immortality is a little more personal. Over the course of my life, I have been forced to bury nearly every person I have ever loved. At this point, all that remain are Anita, my kids and a handful of half and step-siblings. I am already tired of saying goodbye, even as I know that I have more farewells left to say before my time is done. To have this continue for generations, centuries, millenia, while I lived on and on, is an experience I have decided I can live without. The Human heart, at least on a personal level, seems to have an unlimited capacity, as well as a pressing need, to love. When all of your loved ones have died, it would only be a matter of time before your heart led you to open up and love again, only to lose them, too. I don't know how much of that a person could take before they went mad but I have no desire to be the test subject.
So, those are my reasons for not being in a hurry to achieve immortality. What about you? Would you be interested in the oppportunity to live forever? Why? Why not?
Let me know first, then you can call the nice men with the white coats and the neat little van to take me away...