If Death Makes Life Meaningless, Would Living Forever Fix It?

I used to dream about dying all the time.

I’d fall to my death…

Get stabbed…

Or something would kill me.

And I’d wake up terrified.

…

But the strange thing was…

When I was awake, I tried my best not to think about death.

I didn’t want to imagine myself dying.

I didn’t want to imagine my parents dying.

I just wanted to forget that one day, all of this would end.

…

But then I started wondering…

What if I didn’t have to die?

What if I could live forever?

I’d have unlimited time to play the piano, read books, fall in love, travel the world…

And I’d never have to worry about running out of time.

Sounds wonderful.

…

But would living forever actually make my life more meaningful?

If the fact that life ends makes everything meaningless, would removing the ending make everything meaningful?

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Imagine the year is 2500, almost 500 years into the future. And humans have developed a substance that if consumed, will grant immortality. Not the type where all damage, pain and suffering is removed—just the part where we won’t die of old age. The body ceases to decay and the body will stay as youthful as the time you were granted immortality.

Now, it would probably be only for the very wealthy, the demand would be through the roof and the supply would be limited.

In a way, I tried to become rich so I could help retire my mother from her 9-5 job. But maybe becoming rich in the future would become a major goal, not only to escape poverty but to have endless time to live a very, very long and meaningful life.

But would that actually make me happy? If I were offered to buy it would I actually do it?

Why do we want immortality?

As I woke up from my nightmares I hated the thought of dying. I often think about how I’m going to die, and usually how it may be painful. No matter what I will die, and it scares me to think about being an old person. Being incapable.

But I think the real reason we want immortality is that it grants safety against that. The hope that once we become immortal we will become enlightened, become happy, and truly live a life of purpose (A long ass life).

So now that I can live forever… what’s the first thing I should do now? Work on a 200 year-long project? Maybe explore every country on earth? Perhaps explore the entirety of our solar systems and it’s planets. No, maybe I can find the cure for cancer.

Would it be feasible for me to want to have bigger goals since those sound like extremely fulfilling experiences and packed with meaning? Even though today, I barely have goals for the next 20-30 years.

There will be some people who may spend thousands of years studying one area of knowledge, another who travels across the universe. Things that would be impossible without immortality, and I think that is an extraordinary thing.

Being immortal would make me more committed to greater and more meaningful goals that would probably not be feasible in the current human realm of time.

This leads me to another point, what would we want to do with our lives and what happens if we stop working?

Does immortality mean less or more work?

Now I did bring up that only the rich will be able to become immortal. But does that mean that every single immortal being will need to continue working to support their continued existence. Or will another entity provide for them? Perhaps resources will be abundant in the future thanks to robots and AI handling the products market.

So, let’s say hypothetically that you don’t need to work. Would some people resort to being more lazy? Delay their goals to tomorrow because they have all the time in the world.

I already think I have all the time in the world, so how would procrastinating affect the immortal man?

…

I think that what may happen is some people will buy immortality in the hopes that they can live in peace and relaxation for the rest of their lives… and THAT would make them happy and fulfilled. And whenever they try to do some incredibly huge project that sounds grandiose and spectacular—it will be easier to procrastinate it because the experience of time doesn’t change even though we’re immortal.

How committed would we be to a 100-year goal? That is almost impossible to think off. All I know is that the mindset required to stay committed will only come from a small few. And that the majority of the already rich and immortal beings will become “less productive”

But what does being less productive mean? If we end up finding things to do that are subjectively fulfilling but to others, not.

Maybe it’s better instead to have the same projects as a normal human life? The experience of time relative to an immortal life is too grand and too uncertain to fill out most of the time. So maybe instead of looking for some insane goal all the time. We can start using that time to explore parts of what we enjoy and are passionate about. What can we actually do with all this time?

For most people though I think that initially after getting the serum they will think… what now?

Instant gratification, endless entertainment, sexual gratification and everything in between. Now is the time to indulge because I’ve finally worked toward the goal of achieving immortality.

The dangerous part of immortality might not be immortality itself, it may be that we think immortality is the end goal. And everything after is meant to be a reward.

I will tell you exactly what I mean…

…

I’m 12 years old and my mother comes home from yet another work shift…

she left the house when it was dark, and she’s back again at dark…

I hear her opening the door as I run down from my room to her…

She says hello to me, and I can see she’s exhausted. Her back and legs hurt a lot too. So I take off her jacket and kiss her…

Mother, when I’m 18. I promise you will never have to work again!

My mother must’ve been wondering: How the hell will he do that?

But of course she smiled.

…

After working endlessly for many months in the hopes of making my YouTube business work, I end up dropping out of high school…

and one day I come home and tell my mother:

Mother, you don’t have to work.

She tells me excitedly:

Oh my god Alex, are you serious?!

Thank you

Seeing her smile that day was the best thing in my life.

I almost forgot that I wasn’t working for the money… I was working to retire my mother. That was my goal.

…

A few years later I finish yet another YouTube video…

ah, I have nothing to do now until the next deadline.

I open up YouTube shorts, and start scrolling…

I watch endless movies…

I was basically living just to maintain the lifestyle I had.

And I never realized that the goal I had achieved was over… I thought the goal of retiring my mother meant I could just relax afterwards.
It took me a few years to realize the goal itself was great, but that my life afterwards had just become a way to pass time…
to maintain the goal I had completed years ago.

And I think the same thing may happen to a lot of people who achieve immortality. Heck even if I were to get it. I would not immediately go ahead with my 100 year plan. I would probably take the serum, go home and then think: What now?

Maybe immortality can be the greatest thing ever, but I suspect a lot more things could go wrong, than right.

An immortal and mortal life.

From my own perspective even though I’m 21-years old. I found that accepting the fact that I was going to die, made me somewhat more fulfilled and eager to get up to do stuff. The fact that I have limited time means that it became harder to just procrastinate and “waste time”

And that if I were to attain immortality, I may wake up one day when I’m 1000 years-old and think what now.

A lot of friends and family who did not take the immortality pill, they will have died. And unless every immortal man has children, which would be another issue of itself… I think that improving the mind and the perception of life will be critical to avoiding a meaningless immortal life.

The worst would be to live for 5000 years thinking that you haven’t been living for the past 4500 years.

Yet there are also people today who are old who feel like the last time they really lived was in their youth.

Maybe it isn’t entirely an age or time problem… maybe it’s the fact that we feel like we’re living life even though we’re not. No matter how long that is.

Because we have a limited amount of things we can do now, I think it makes things easier to enjoy in the present, while when we’re immortal every single thing we do may lead to bigger questions about ones existence.

I honestly do think that suicide may be an issue in the future for these people, not because they feel like they haven’t achieved enough, but because there may be nothing else they feel the need to achieve. A man who is 500 years-old may take his own life because he is genuinely “done”. And there may of course be people who thought immortality would make them happy, when in reality there life became more meaningless, and they will take their own life.

It will vary from person-to-person I heavily believe. Just like how different each life is today. But the problem of removing the ending of life is, how do we determine when the end is? Or will some live millions of years into the future and feel completely fine?

When I was younger, I was terrified that my life would end.

But years later, when I finally had the freedom to live the life I’d been working toward…

I didn’t know what to do with it.

…

And I wonder whether immortality would actually change that.

Maybe it would give me thousands of years to discover things I can’t even imagine today.

Or maybe I’d spend thousands of years waiting to start.

I honestly don’t know.

But the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether my problem was ever really that I didn’t have enough time.

Maybe I was expecting time itself to tell me what to do with it.