Plot Device Question

[rolanni]

Oh, look, a Winter Storm Warning, starting at 10 a.m. tomorrow, when I Fully Expect to be at the grocery store, if I'm not at the vet's office with Mozart.  (Good wishes and prayer wheel spinnings for Mozart, please.  He's decided that baby food is even kind of a chore to eat.  We think (hope) he's got something going with his mouth that maybe the vets can fix.  They're cautious, and reasonably so, about putting a 15 year old cat under anesthesia.  On the other hand, baby food shouldn't be that tough to chew...)

So, anyhow, 3-6 inches of snow expected from 10 a.m. tomorrow through 10 p.m. tomorrow night.  The good news is that the projected temperatures are higher; the original forecasted temps would have almost been too cold for snow...

But, that's not why I called y'all here today.

What I'd like to know is, Would you want to live forever?

Or, alternatively, Why would someone want to live forever -- absent, OK, a Deathless Enemy who must be pursued and neutralized, or Science!  or True Love or Fear of Eternal Damnation -- though we're starting to get thin, here, by my reckoning.  At some point, I think, one would become So Weary that even the threat of Eternal Damnation might not trump the wish to simply lie down the burden and sleep.

This may, I note, Just Be Me.

And I will, in fairness, also note that we deal with at least two Deathless in our work.  What seems to keep them going is Their Work, and they are fortunate, that their work is infinitely variable.

But, given your everyday guy who happens to be a vampire, or who otherwise has to perform some vile act in order to NOT DIE, when their lives seem to be, aside the quest to NOT DIE, pointless or without purpose. Why does that person want to live forever?

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

But, given your everyday guy who happens to be a vampire, or who otherwise has to perform some vile act in order to NOT DIE, when their lives seem to be, aside the quest to NOT DIE, pointless or without purpose. Why does that person want to live forever?

Got the same question emerging in one of my own on going series'. The answer I went for: there's a bigger evil out there, and they're doing "the little Dutch boy on the dyke", long-term. (This doesn't end well and it offers the potential for series escalation.) Call it a variant on the Deathless Enemy: the Watchman On Eternal Duty.

Another answer I used elsewhere: vampirism affects quite a lot of people, but in general only the psychopaths survive -- sane folks walk out into the daylight as soon as they fully apprehend what they've become.

Yet another answer: your body may be immortal but your mind isn't. Live long enough and you'll effectively become someone else, forgetting where you've been. Life as a permanent 90 year old in a 20 year old-equivalent body. If you've got a continuous purpose ("Watchman On Eternal Duty") you need to leave yourself reminder notes: "2050: Hi, self! You have an appointment in a damned crypt to beat off the Eternal Darkness for another 100 years coming up in 2068. Try not to forget!")

(If you make it to Boskone and the question's still relevant we could brainstorm it there.)

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Heck, do a panel on it!

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

You got me -- I don't want to live forever, and I am of an age where I wonder what's going to take me out. I am hoping it is not a piece of my own stupidity. A broken hip is not something I want to consider (most who break a hip die within a year). And I definitely have a horror of dementia. So.

[otterb.livejournal.com]

I'm going to assume we're talking about corporeal immortality here, since spiritual immortality is a different question, I think. Reasons why someone might want to live forever:

Self-centeredness. If I am the most important thing in my world, then my continued existence is the most important thing I can achieve. Let weaker humans seek immortality through a legacy of art or works or family - I can achieve the genuine thing.

Control. I would hand on my business / my estate / whatever to my successors, but they can't be trusted to do as good a job with it as I would. Or, think of how much additional power I can amass if I have more time to scheme and strategize. (Nobody expects to be poor and immortal; they expect to be rich and powerful and immortal.)

Fear. I know what life looks like. I don't know what death or an afterlife may be like.

But yeah, I'm with you in thinking it would eventually become tedious, absent the Eternal Enemy to deal with. In Michelle Sagara's Elantra series, a nearly-immortal elf comments to Kaylin, the human main character, something like she has no understanding of bored elves get and how much they value something new and surprising.

Or, quoting Susan Ertz, "Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon."

[danielmedic.livejournal.com]

I think I'd be pretty happy to have a nigh-infinite number of rainy Sunday afternoons to figure out what to do with them.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Al and Mel are getting damned tired of the god/goddess bit, I can tell you. They got along on amnesia for the last couple-thousand years, but I screwed that up for them . . .

No, I don't want to live forever. This world and species are tiresome enough at any time.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

If you were able to pick one person other than yourself to live forever, with no questions of personal attachment, i.e. this was a one-time thing and everyone understood that you were making the choice for the benefit of some greater good, who would you choose to live forever? Why? Assuming that immortality would grant them indefinitely extended life without any of the usual complications of senility, feebleness, weakened immune system, etc. without the requirement of consuming human blood or whatnot.

I could see people choosing a spiritual leader, or a great thinker of some sort, or in medieval times, a great leader in a time where terms of reign aren't limited... Some people might choose loved ones, but if it's a one-time choice, it might be a curse as well; whomever was to become immortal would have to face that they were going to outlive their loved ones.

It might make for an interesting world, if the ticket to becoming immortal was to be so well known and respected and loved that one would be the obvious choice by the randomly or deifically chosen dispenser of immortality. Being a villain? Sucks to be doomed to mortality! Unless the dispenser of immortality likes villains, of course.

[danielmedic.livejournal.com]

That's a really good dilemma. :) I guess a lot of it would depend on whether you get to ask your candidates how they feel about it before making the choice. Would my daughter, say, regard immortality as a curse? I'd be happy to give it to her, but I'd want to know her opinion on the matter first.

[adriannem.livejournal.com]

I was with two loved ones as they died last year. And a friend's father is dying now. The will to live is built deep, deep into the animal. Even when the rational part of the brain knew that they can't continue living for more than a few days, they fight to live, even asking for treatment that they had sworn they did not want. I'm not sure this is "fear" of death, or just a bone deep instinct to survive.

This is a fascinating discussion of the stories we tell about death: www.ted.com/talks/stephen_cave_the_4_stories_we_tell_ourselves_about_death.html

His first point is that get totally irrational about dying, and we accept amazing stories in a desperate attempt to convince ourselves that we don't have to die.

The rest is a lovely summary of the ways that we convince ourselves of our immortality.

So, "who would want to live forever?" might not be the right question. Who is willing/able to accept death might be.

[alicebentley]

I don't personally feel like I want to live forever, but I also foresee very few situations where I would want to take action to cease living. So while there may be times where being dead looks more attractive than staying alive (boredom, stress, dismay, ...) I can see it just never getting to the point where a person kills themselves rather than face it anymore.

At the ripe old age of 54 (i.e., not really very old), I can also already observe that large sections of my already-experienced life have drifted out of my memory. There's less concern for the boredom of endlessly repeated experiences when it seems pretty certain that only bits of those events hang around long-term.

[margotinez.livejournal.com]

Primary reason for wishing longevity is to see what happens next. Will we walk on Pluto's moons? Will we achieve FTL travel? Will we figure out how to blow ourselves up? Who will my grandchildren choose to marry? Also the chance to reinvent ourselves at will. Counter this with loss of friends and family, boredom, and the doubt that I have the true inner resources to capitalize on extended life.

But please don't take this as rationale to let go of any of our favorite people. We've already lost Allianna once.

[danielmedic.livejournal.com]

Why do we want to go on living now? Not really an easy question to answer, I think, and yet (by and large) we do. Assuming we could stay healthy indefinitely, I don't see any reason I'd be any more eager to die at 144 than I am now at 44 ... or 544, or 4,400, or 44,000,000. There is more to experience in this world than any of us could ever know in a million lifetimes. If you posit having to do something terrible like feeding on people to stay alive, I suppose, it's a different matter. But absent that, and the infirmities of age--give me that immortality pill, please!

[welhar.livejournal.com]

Do they want to live forever, or just much longer than a normal life span? I could see someone wanting to live longer if they have a task to fulfill or perhaps serve some sort of guardianship role.

On another note, best wishes to Mozart- I hope he feels better soon.

[ext-1743106.livejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

I wouldn't want to live forever, but I would potentially want to live for a longer than normal span. However, when I remember that all of my family and friends will die before me...it makes me too sad to think about. So no, I don't want to live forever. And I want to have a long, healthy life with very few deaths before mine. Ah, wishful thinking...

I, too, hope Mozart feels better soon.

[stitchwhich.livejournal.com]

If the person was in charge of a group of people ( a family, a clan, a business with dedicated employees and a goal) I could imagine that person just being too busy to want to die... "I am tied. It'd be good to end this. After I'm done dealing with A, B, and C, and get so-and-so up to date on taking over, I'm laying this down. I swear.".

Alternately, if one were able to live forever with people one loves, that would take a long time and a lot of relationship changing before one would want to stop.

[pgranzeau.livejournal.com]

I have lived far longer than I expected to already, to the age where I never know if I am going to be able to read the next Liaden novel (or the next Archer's Beach novel) or not. I wouldn't want to live too much longer in my current state of health and condition (and I won't bore you with them), but if I were in the same condition that I was at 22. . .

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

jimhines had a very good point in Libromancer: not dying means you can Read All the Books.

Silence in the Library had me green with envy. Because All The Books.

[drammar.livejournal.com]

Forever, probably not. But several hundred, even a couple thousand years, maybe. IF age progression were static, and if those I love most could also be granted the same boon, then yes. And that's mainly curiosity -- what comes next?

[attilathepbnun.livejournal.com]

Exactly! To see what comes next, of course!
Nonhuman aliens? Cloning/time travel that makes possible the resurrection of extinct species? I'd like to see dodos or Tasmanian tigers ...

And hopefully, all that's wrong with Mozart is bad teeth or something ... My sixteen-year-old dog stopped eating a few moths ago; turned out he had a mouth abcess that antibiotics cleaned up nicely ..

forever

[nocal-kathyf.livejournal.com]

I liked the idea of living for a very, very long time when I was younger, but while I think an extra decade or two might be nice (assuming I am physically mobile and mentally alert), I would not like to live longer. There is a season for all things.
It is frustrating to see that humanity in general does not seem to learn from past lessons. The college students I work with are bright, caring individuals and know practically nothing of the past. I like them, but have little in common with them which is probably how it should be. If I had to be stuck at one age I'd pick 36 though. I could still do cartwheels and lose weight easily!
I certainly would not want to live if I had to "perform some vile act in order to NOT DIE" - I'd pick death in a minute unless it meant someone else I loved would have to step in and do it. Then I'd plan like crazy to get back at whoever came up with the stupid idea in the first place!
Many good wishes for Mozart, and a great New Year for you all.

Reasons to live forever

[bosparan.livejournal.com]

Immortality happens to be one of my favorite topics (beside the somewhat related topic of divinity).
Thus, several of my characters have so far had to deal with it:

Mel, the indifferent:
He just doesn't care about pretty much anything. It's not that he wants to live ... he just doesn't want to die either. He's a fairly bored side-character who sometimes helps out the main cast for lack of anything better to do.

Gabriel Shiva:
A drifter that just lives into the day, his motto is to do a good deed, every day. He lives to meet people, believing every human (and alien) to be a unique individual. He also happens to have a notoriously bad memory ("you try storing infinite data in a finite storage space!").

The Collector:
The "Collector of Things" has dedicated his never-ending life to collecting 'Things'. What the current 'Thing' may be is usually a mystery and not necessarily restricted to physical objects (For example he had a friend, Aeons ago. Since then he keeps collecting the life-stories of her various reincarnations (one of which happens to be the main character in the story)).

Brutal Mike:
A mercenary who lives for the thrill of battle, considering solely those moments of chaos to be moments where he truly is alive. No, he's not anywhere close to sane.

Haschem "The Guardian" Antares:
Not literally immortal, but ever-reincarnating (with full memories minus common forgetfulness), he has vowed to give his all to protect his people, which he does in various roles, as needed, be it general, common soldier, politician or industrial magnate.


Those (and other reasons I have thought of so far) usually come down to a few basic concepts:
- Eternal mission (Protecting something / Collecting something that automatically increases / ...)
- Insanity
- Live into the moment (Usually with some component that wipes the past, either common forgetfulness or some special method)
- Karma (Suicide = Bad, Accumulating deeds that add to Karma = Good)
- Non-Creativity: If one isn't interested in change and comfortable with sameness, eternity can't be that bad, right? I know the odd accountant who really wouldn't care ...
- Temp Jobber: Do something until you master it to the point of boredom, then shift occupation to something new. As ages progress, new professions rise, new arts are created, new devices that need to be mastered are invented.

Another thing however is not actual immortality, but really long longevity (which could be immortality which hasn't been going on an actual eternity. Something like Dulcey and the Uncle. 1000-1400 years aren't really an eternity. Especially if common forgetfulness works.).
In this scenario, especially if there were some major disrupting factors, large scale projects could be a very valid motive (e.g.: creating a big mercantile power). In opposite to truly eternal missions, this will not work for eternity, but still be a good way to spend time for a few centuries or even millenia. Maybe the tree falls into this category, having made seeing Korval truly prosper his true mission (Though I rather think he's an 'eternal mission' kind of immortal).

[thewol.livejournal.com]

There would be practical disadvantages if you were the only immortal in a nonimmortal society (and you didn't want to live your life as a lab rat of the CIA or some other such organization while they tried to find out why you were immortal and if they could make somebody else immortal), which would be hiding the fact that you are immortal in a society that requires passports, driver's licenses, social security numbers, etc. I think the TV series "Forever Knight" and the Highlander TV series and films, as well as the Jack Harkness character on Dr. Who/Torchwood TV series addressed that aspect fairly well. Those also addressed another downside to being immortal, which would be knowing that every time you made friends with someone or fell in love with someone, you would always have to leave them before they got wise to the fact that you didn't age, and that you would always and inevitably outlive them. That could get awfully hard pretty quickly. You'd either have to be spiritually very resilient and be able to accept that reality, or be a hermit or antisocial as heck (so you wouldn't be inclined to make friends or fall in love in the first place) or be a psychopath and be devoid of empathy. We already have a small taste of it with our pets --every time we get a pet, we will eventually have to go through losing them. Imagine what it would be like to have to abandon your friends, or worse, your spouse and children (if you could have them) over and over and over again.

[thewol.livejournal.com]

Am sending good vibes and best wishes to Mozart, with hopes that it is Nothing Serious, and that a Speedy Recovery is immediately forthcoming. Also, sending hopes that Mozart's female human may travel to and from safely and without incident.

Maine Weather

[catherine ives (from livejournal.com)]

The weather in Maine has been on the national news. Lots of power outages, etc. Hoping for better weather over there. I saw the posting on Facebook about a good vet visit for Mozart.

but there's always more to learn

[gareth griffiths (from livejournal.com)]

Live forever ... Depends on what state - decrepit and decaying probably not. Otherwise there's always more to learn, even when you think you've seen it all there's still more. I think it would change your outlook though, short term thinking would be very strange, although there could be an attraction to sometimes just living in the moment.

[drammar.livejournal.com]

Also see Time Enough for Love and its sequels.