Would you like to live forever? This topic came up when I studied philosophy, and the greatest minds seemed to agree that they’d rather not, that if life went on forever it would somehow mean less, that it’s only precious because it’s short. But then again philosophers do talk a lot of poo.
I reckon that, so long as you could retain your health and be able to fund eternity, then the longer, the better. Unfortunately, it’s the health part that buggers everything up.
Some people live very clean, running every day and even going to obscene lengths to live a longer life. I mean, tofu!
And for some of those people it works. But what do they win? Yes, they get perhaps an extra ten years, but the problem is that those years are tacked on to the end of their lives rather then being inserted into their twenties or thirties when they would be useful.
And if you live ten years longer, the chances are that, well, your friends won’t, and you’ll be all alone, with a slowly crumbling body wondering if all that tofu was really worth it.
So I had a better idea: this walk. Hear me out. I noticed that when I looked back on those years I’d cycled around Europe and elsewhere, they were full of memories of the places I’d been, the people I’d met and the weird food I’d eaten. But when I looked back on those years without a massive journey, I could barely remember anything. Those years were almost missing. Therefore, to fill your life with memories extended your life. And that was one of the reasons for doing this walk.
Unfortunately, now I’m actually doing it, I realise my error. The last two plaguey years, sitting around and not doing much, time crept along more slowly than a walrus on a skateboard. But this walk, with new experiences every day, is flying by. Too quickly. Today it’s already Day 40 and I feel like I started yesterday. More than a month just vanished. Sure, I have a lot of memories of those days, but each day lasted about 20 seconds.
All this is to say that my plan to extend my life has failed. Maybe it’s time to buy some tofu. Nah, the philosophers were right. Who wants to live forever?
