If live for a thousand years, what would you do?
The new movie Logan got me thinking about the subject. Anyone who is a fan of the X-Men franchise, knows that Logan AKA Wolverine, has incredible off-the-chart healing capabilities which dramatically slows down his aging.
So that means that he could live for centuries, well beyond the lifespan of any normal human being.
If you follow the timeline of the first Wolverine film, it's starts off in Canada, in the year 1845, when Logan is only 10 years old. And with the film beingset in the year 2033, that measures that Logan has been alive 198 years.
So I just got to thinking, and decided to ask the question that if you could live for say 300 years, what would you do during that time?
And mind you, like Logan, you're aging process would be dramatically slowed down, so that means you would still have your used for quite a long time, I wouldn't really start to feel the effects of aging until you were getting toward the end of your life.
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I imagine watching everyone I know grow old and die would probably get old really fast. I like to think if I had 1,000 years, I'd get to traveling a lot more often. Do a lot of it by foot, just because I've got the time to spare. Probably hit the weight room on a regular basis. I figure working out four times a week for a good 700 years or so would do wonders for a person's strength. The only thing about living that long that I can think of right now that would really thrill me would be seeing how humanity advances over the next thousand years, for better or worse. Living through an absolutely rediculous amount of history, and seeing how peoples opinions change on things as time progresses. I could probably make a living just telling people stories how things were. Hell, I think historians would be swarming me after 150 years or so.
I would just hope I wouldn't wind up going senile. I think I'd hang around parks and tell random kids completely retarded stories that obviously never took place if that happened. Something crazy like, "I defended the Holy Land from those bastard infidel Canadians in 2200 using nothing but a pool noodle!" That, or I would just ramble on about memes that people in this day and age has already forgotten. Tell some poor kid the tale of Rick Astley, or be like, "Back in MY day we listended to stuff like this!" I would then play "Peanut Butter Jelly Time!" on a comically large iPhone while the child wonders how we ever survived such dark times.
I don't even know what to do this weekend and you're trying to ask me what will I do in the next 300 years?!
On a serious note, I'd spend time on self-development. Just imagine it - by the end of your life you can be a man who visited every single country in the world, learned a few dozens of languages, achieved the top in a big number of careers, made a lot of money, fucked thousands of bitches and so the list goes on. If you're the only person who has the ability to live such a long life, then you'll also become a star. Plus, you'll always have a gazillion stories to tell and you might have a crowd of your great-great-great-great-great grandchildren listening to you. Isn't it all awesome?
Another nice thing is that you get to see the future and its progress. If space colonies will most likely appear in the XXl century already, I can't even predict what will happen to Earth and our society in 300 years. Probably something grand! Actually, one of the reasons why I'm afraid of dying is that I won't see how will the world change after me.
The bad thing is that everybody around you will die. But I could get used to it.
P.S. Though I'm not so sure that I'll have to do everything listed above. I'll probably spend half of my life waiting for the new episodes by TTG...
I dunno, I think I'd hate having to plan on faking my death and creating a new identity every few decades. I would want to avoid others figuring it out. That just invites attention, which invites questions, and before you know it you're naked in a holding cell in some secret lab-bunker, getting poked and prodded. Fuck that shit.
But I guess living in the wilderness is an option. Might be fun to spend the time pretending to be Bigfoot and freak out campers every once in a while. Maybe get some worshippers to bring me offerings of cold beer and jimmy johns. Yeah.
So basically I'd become a troll
Everything
I read somewhere that years seem to be shorter the older you are. This Is because one year to a five year old is 1/5 of their life (a large portion of their life) and that's the only perspective they know, so it's a very long time for them. However, a year to a fifty year old is 1/50 of their life (a very small portion of their life), so they see the years as going by faster.
That means by the time you are 300 years old, one year is 1/300th of your life. The perception of time goes by so much faster that it may be impossible to truly appreciate the moment, perpetually stuck just going by day to day as if they were blinks of an eye.
Of course it might not be that dramatic at 300, but I can definitely see that happening at 1000.
I wouldn't wanna live for a thousand years. Longevity can, in a lot of cases, be a curse.
One of the better examinations of this was Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire. It would be hard to adapt to new ways. You would have to be extremely accepting of change, and most people are not.
kill myself
I'd be an even bigger procrastinator than I already am.
Heck I'd call myself The Procrastinator and make a costume with a big P on the chest. Well, eventually, when I get around to it.
I imagine my plans would change over time, depending on how I change. Frankly, imagining who I will be tomorrow is impossible. I constantly change as I experience new things. Were I to make a plan now, however. I would find a way to live longer than three hundred.
It's hilarious that some people genuinely think eighty years is good enough for them, never mind three hundred.
So given the triple digits have expanded into infinity, I suppose I would make up stories. So basically what I am doing now; forever.
And given humanity probably isn't going to last into the next hundred years, It'll be just me and whatever other beings have gained immortality.
So, basically it'll be me and one ever-youthful Mesopotamian snake.
I agree; watching loved ones slowly waste away into the cold nothingness can be a real pain.
Still have fewer wives than Mickey Rooney.
Become a celebrity and national treasure.
Then I'd get scholars to consider my opinion of anything over anyone else because of my supposed "knowledge", have women knocking at my door every day at all times cause of my supposed "worldliness", would be able to live a vapid hedonistic life-style akin to an 80's rock star until my heart gave out from all the drug abuse and alcoholism permeated through my body and have hundreds of millions of adorning people crying over me as a mislabeled "tragedy".
Yeah, that's the life...
I'd play the next 43 Seasons of Telltale's The Walking Dead games...
And hopefully get a job there at some point.