IMMORTALITY?....I COULD MAKE IT WORK

Whiling away this past winter’s hours Deb and I became fans of the television series Forever. The basic premise is that a New York City medical examiner dies 200 years ago while trying to rescue slaves as a doctor aboard a ship in the African slave trade and he becomes physically immortal. His long life has given him extensive knowledge in many areas along with very keen powers of observation making him an excellent crime solver while examining the bodies of the many homicide victims he is tasked to examine. His job as a medical examiner also gives him great insight into death and he is hoping to find answers as to why he never dies when killed; which happens in just about every episode. 

            Now, you’re probably wondering why I am all of the sudden a promoter of CTV and ABC Television shows, I’m not and the show is being cancelled after just one season, tsk, tsk, tsk, but the whole point of the information above is to tell you that the character in the series, Dr. Henry Morgan, somehow isn’t too happy with his immortality which goes completely against all human history as the search and desire for human biological and physical immortality has been sought after since the earliest recordings of mankind. Some scientists say it is merely decades away.

            I found it a little odd that, as we were travelling recently, I happened to mention to Debbie that I think a guy would have to be immortal in order to be able to see and live in so many, wonderful and beautiful places this planet has to offer and we were only covering a few miles in Western Canada for crying out loud! Think of the entire world! Even with all of their money Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or some other bazillionaire would have the financial resources but not the longevity to see it all.

            I’m talking about physical immortality here, of course, similar to the fictitious Dr. Henry Morgan, where you would stay around 40 years-old for a thousand years plus or so, not “life everlasting” as in eternal life, if you know what I mean. I’m thinking I’m never going to actually find out what it’d be like but I don’t know how “difficult” it would be to live for years and years.

Yes, I know, you’d want someone to not age right along with you, maybe, but still. And it would definitely be hard outliving all of your descendants but there’d be some upsides, too, I’m sure. Not being able to die means you could try anything. Bull fighting, cliff jumping, high-wire walking, chain saw juggling…you might want to check to see if your limbs would grow back first, you know, maybe start with a toe or a finger, or something…. Anyway, I’m pretty sure you’re getting the gist of my thought process here.

I don’t mean to bore you with another “how fantastic British Columbia is” story but it seemed to us that you could pull over pretty much anywhere out there and find a gorgeous place to live for a little while. I will also include the entire provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in there as well. In fact, I’m fairly certain that if you lived one decade in every spot you would like to call home it’d easily take you past a thousand years. That’s only 100 spots, if my math is correct. It’s barely a start.

As stated earlier, scientists are convinced we will achieve physical immortality soon but we’re supposed to be riding hover boards right now too, aren’t we? I am not sure, with 7 billion of us humans on the planet already, and the average lifespan rising, where we’d put everybody if they were to all live 1000 years plus but if science is able to make us not die it’d probably be able to figure that part out, too. I would hope.

I don’t think we’ll see it happen in my lifetime, but I’m working on my list of places to live, should the opportunity present itself.

“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.”-Woody Allen, (1939-).