Why?

Daily writing prompt

What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

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I never quite understood the obsession with life extension and LEV (Longevity Escape Velocity). What are you planning on doing with your life if it extends into another decade or five? Anyone thinking they’d do something different is delusional. Say you live until 110 instead of 75, then what? An amazing 35-years, was it? Unlikely. I hate to parrot the whole quality over quantity argument, but it really is that. Consider this thought experiment: Ask a child what animal they’d like to be, and they’ll likely reply based on a variety of juvenile considerations including perceived coolness, size or ferocity. Length of lifespan is never considered. This is hardly surprising. But what if we direct this question to adults, such as yourself? Even in non-juvenile, semi-serious consideration (as far as one can stretch this incredulous inquiry), hardly anyone produces a mental spreadsheet of lifespan lengths and selects the animal that lives the longest. No, in fact, adults often choose a type of bird or something that flies and which has a rather short lifespan. Now this may not be the best, or even a very good analogy for saying the obsession with life extension is unnecessary, but it’s the best I came up with in five minutes. And that, my friends, is why my opinion is rock solid and absolute canon on the cosmic scale, so you better get on board and quit postponing your dreams. Also, the prospect of living forever (i.e., LEV) sounds greedy and pointless. It’s the transient nature of life that drives almost all beauty and creativity in the world. Without it, we are machines of hedonism doomed to perish in the pit of Gomorrah. This life is enough.