Book of Questions #17

[Scott]

>>>>>>>>>>>>>
17.  Would you be willing to become extremely ugly physically if it 
meant you would live for a thousand years at any physical age you 
chose?

**Auxiliary question :  How much are you affected by a person's 
physical appearance?  How would it change your life if something 
happened to make you much less attractive than you are now?  Do you 
find anything disturbing about immortality?  What age seems ideal to 
you?
<<<<<<<<<<<<<

--You responded to your own post so eloquently that I'm not sure I've 
got much to add! I basically agree with you. I don't think I'd want 
to live for 1,000 years, in any condition, at least not in the same 
incarnation.  The mystery of life is, for me at least that we, like 
the world, are constantly changing. I wouldn't want to the same and 
watch everything else change. I don't think I'd get bored though 
because like you I love learning. Think of the wonderful things one 
would have seen living from the year 1000 AD until today. There are 
many terrible things too, but the wonderful things, the developments 
in human history that could all be experienced in the space of one 
lifetime...wow

Scott


;'
SML wrote:
> Being extremely ugly wouldn't disturb me much.  It might have if 
I'd been
> born extremely ugly and had to grow up that way (those things 
matter so much
> to children), but I was just your average homely kid.  I've never 
actually
> been pretty, so I never had to go through the agony of losing my 
youthful
> beauty, LOL.  It IS depressing to see the signs of aging creeping 
up on me
> (I'm 49)- the loss of health, energy, physical agility, etc.  Since 
I'm a
> person who enjoys being alone a lot, being extremely ugly would not 
be much
> of a hardship.  Ugliness doesn't seem to stop most of the people I 
see from
> loving, being loved, or having friends.  If your loved ones love 
you because
> of your looks, you're in for some bitter years ahead.
> 
> If I were to live a thousand years, I'd probably choose to be 
somewhere
> around age 30, where I still had the good health and flexibility of 
youth,
> but didn't look like a kid anymore.  The attraction to living 1,000 
years is
> LEARNING -- I always joke that I'm either going to be buried with 
all my
> books in my coffin with me, or find out who my next reincarnation 
will be so
> I can leave all my possessions to that person.  You ever hear the 
motto "You
> live and learn, then you die and forget it all" -- that's my 
problem.  I
> love to read, I love to learn, I love to keep my brain active, and 
I don't
> want to lose all that when I die.  Perhaps there is an existence 
after
> death, but my Ego fears there is not.
> 
> The negative aspects to living 1,000 years are numerous, of 
course.  First,
> I'd have to earn a living, century after century.  I don't enjoy 
that -- it
> interferes with my private life, heh.  I started counting the days 
to
> retirement the first day I started working.  Another bad aspect is 
loss of
> loved ones -- imagine seeing every single friend or family member 
age and
> die, repeatedly.  You'd go through 20 lifetimes worth of grief.  
And of
> course, your surroundings would change enormously -- think if you 
had been
> alive since the year 1000 A.D., then think what it would be like to 
live
> until the year 3000 A.D. and imagine what changes there would be.
> 
> But when all is said and done, the length of your lifetime is still
> relevant -- doesn't matter if you live 25 years or 925 years, it's 
what you
> do with those years.  I like the fantasy of living 1000 years, but 
I KNOW
> the reality could be very grim.  It also could be amazing.  And at 
the end
> of that thousand years, you'd discover that it still really is a 
very short
> time compared to Infinity, or even compared to human history.
> 
> SML
> 
> "We are such stuff as dreams are made on,
> and our little life is rounded with a sleep."
>  -- Shakespeare