Afraid, are we?

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Are you still afrain of immortality, Squatter of Amon Rudh?

I still don't want to live forever, if that counts. Eternity here would be a nightmare (everything's moving away from how I'd like it to be even now and I can't see that improving) and I've a feeling that not to die is to have an incomplete experience of life. Whether or not that's true I couldn't go on forever and never know whether or not there's anything more afterwards.

I once had a vague idea for a character who had been taking a drug for a few centuries that made him live longer. The downside of it was that his brain was slowly decaying...

Interesting. Did he become a judge, a politician or a company chairman? Or did his mind not decay that far? [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]
Butler has something quite thought-provoking to say on the subject in Erewhon. Basically certain people on the island would be born with a particular birth-mark, and they would live forever, but they'd age at the same rate and in the same way as everyone else, gradually becoming more and more senile and decrepit. Of course in reality the body would simply give up sooner or later but it's a good illustration of the pitfalls of eternity, preachy though the style may be.