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elfsRoger Ebert asks, and answers, the question, "Would you want to live to be 500 years old?"
"Oh, no," he quotes an elderly woman approvingly. "That would be too long." Ebert adds:
A striking example: I'm 45. In my 20s I sowed my wild oats and, like lots of people, ended up in bed with quite a few. Let's say somewhere between 10 and 20[1]. Although I know that, at the time, I knew the names and email addresses of everyone I slept with, I can't recall those names or addresses now. They've faded, leaving only vague impressions of hurried scrambling for condoms in fold-away beds in darkened dens, and sneaking desperate fumblings in cars under bridges, neither one of us able to convince our roommates to give us space.
Memories fade. Even moreso, when we revisit memories, we build memories about remembering, coloring, modifying, mutating those memories into something else. In the process, my self builds a new self, daily, out of the machinery of yesterday. I hope that self is a better person, for some personal definition of "better," and if it is I can rejoice, and if it isn't, I can take notes on what I'll do tomorrow to make progress. There is no destination, only the journey.
People who treat death as the fitting end to the journey don't appreciate sightseeing enough. The future is going to be messy. Humanity is always a work in progress. I am a work in progress. But I'd like to see both.
[1] Let me note that being bisexual didn't double my chances of getting laid, and that even though guys are supposedly easier than girls, they're not that much easier. The legendary gays who bedded a thousand men the right wing loved to trot out during the height of the AIDS crisis must have been truly heroic in their pursuit of sex.
"Oh, no," he quotes an elderly woman approvingly. "That would be too long." Ebert adds:
What would I do with all the accumulating memories? How would it feel to remember my best friend of four centuries ago? If everyone could live to 500, would we grow tired of one another? How many centuries do I really want to listen to Justin Bieber? How many Presidential debates do I need?The idea that we fill up, or run out of, ourselves is so depressing I don't know where to begin. Despite the fact that I blogged about a teenage memory recently doesn't mean that I remember every factoid from my personal history.
A striking example: I'm 45. In my 20s I sowed my wild oats and, like lots of people, ended up in bed with quite a few. Let's say somewhere between 10 and 20[1]. Although I know that, at the time, I knew the names and email addresses of everyone I slept with, I can't recall those names or addresses now. They've faded, leaving only vague impressions of hurried scrambling for condoms in fold-away beds in darkened dens, and sneaking desperate fumblings in cars under bridges, neither one of us able to convince our roommates to give us space.
Memories fade. Even moreso, when we revisit memories, we build memories about remembering, coloring, modifying, mutating those memories into something else. In the process, my self builds a new self, daily, out of the machinery of yesterday. I hope that self is a better person, for some personal definition of "better," and if it is I can rejoice, and if it isn't, I can take notes on what I'll do tomorrow to make progress. There is no destination, only the journey.
People who treat death as the fitting end to the journey don't appreciate sightseeing enough. The future is going to be messy. Humanity is always a work in progress. I am a work in progress. But I'd like to see both.
[1] Let me note that being bisexual didn't double my chances of getting laid, and that even though guys are supposedly easier than girls, they're not that much easier. The legendary gays who bedded a thousand men the right wing loved to trot out during the height of the AIDS crisis must have been truly heroic in their pursuit of sex.
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Date: 2011-06-16 05:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 07:53 pm (UTC)