The Daily Post challenge for today is: If you knew you were going to live forever, what would you change? I’m going to put aside the heaven debate and assume we’re talking about living forever in the flesh here on earth.
The obvious answer is–I would take better care of myself. I mean, if you’re going to live forever–you want to be able to live, right?
Who am I kidding? I’m the queen of procrastinators. If I knew for sure I was going to live forever, I’d no doubt put off taking care of myself. I mean–there’s plenty of time for diet and exercise tomorrow when your tomorrows are unlimited.
The next obvious answer is I’d want to take better care of the planet. Who wants to be stuck in a polluted bog for eternity? Eventually all fuels run out from oil to whale blubber to plutonium. Would I live long enough to see the planet run out of fossil fuels and become so polluted that solar energy is difficult or impossible to use? I’m just shallow enough to want to live with some technology–electric lights, tv and the internet–please.
And what of the population problem? Am I the only one living forever, or is it all of us? I don’t want to outlive all my kids, grandchildren, husband, family and friends, but where will we put everyone if we’re all living forever?
I think this brings us to the real answer to the question. What would change? We would have to invest heavily in the space program. We’re going to need to colonize Mars and planets yet undiscovered beyond the solar system.
Get out your Star Trek technical manuals folks. We’ve got some serious building to do.
