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

[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.