It's that time again!!! Unwritten and some 1000 other blogs participated last year, and this year looks to be even bigger! Just like last year, I've opened up the blog to host 26 fabulous writers, with each day of the challenge representing the letters of the alphabet from A-Z. I've asked each writer to focus on something that is personal to them, so we can learn more about each other.
Please check out some of the other blogs in the challenge here:
Please check out some of the other blogs in the challenge here:
A-Z BLOG CHALLENGE 2013
L is for...Live Forever
by Jenny Twist
Maurice
Chevalier, when asked how he felt about growing old, replied, “Old age isn't so bad when you
consider the alternative.” A sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree.
In those wacky action movies where the hero does something insanely dangerous, preceded by a cry of, “You want to live forever?” to encourage his companions, I would have replied, “Yes.”
Yes, of
course I want to live forever. There would be some provisos, naturally. I
wouldn’t want to get more and more decrepit and gaga as I went on living
uselessly, unaware even of who I was.
But what
if you could live forever and remain young and healthy? How would you feel
about that? It’s not as impossible as you might think. Certainly life
expectancy is extending with each generation. In the middle ages you were lucky
to survive childhood, let alone live to grow old. By my grandparents’
generation 70 was considered a good age. Most people would die before
retirement or soon after. My parents both died at the age of 76 and by then
that was considered perhaps a little on the young side. I fully expect to live
into my nineties and the prognostication for the next generation is even more
than that.
I read
recently that a girl child born today has a life expectancy of 110 and that the
first person to live to 150 has already been born, we just don’t know exactly
when.
Immortality,
or at the very least, greatly increased longevity, is just around the corner.
And, as
far as I can see, the only response from governments is to slightly raise the
retirement age.
 |
| FIND it HERE! |
We
should, surely, be looking further ahead than that. The world population,
according to Wikipedia, exceeded 7 billion in 2012 and is expected to reach as
much as 10.5 billion by 2050. Surely
this will become unsustainable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
And what
if we actually achieved immortality? What would happen then? It wouldn’t just
be a case of raising the retirement age (or more likely scrapping retirement
altogether). Surely we would have to severely curtail procreation. And if so,
who would be allowed to have the children? Would they decide on grounds of
physical perfection, intelligence, good parenting ability?
“Don’t be
daft,” said my friend when we discussed this. “The rich will have the
children.”
I fear
she is right. Whatever the criteria, the rich will find a way of fulfilling
them.
I touch
briefly on immortality in my novel All in
the Mind, but didn’t
make any serious attempt to address the issues it raised.
What do
you think will happen? And what should we be doing about it?
Please
comment. I’d love to know your views.
****
Jenny Twist was born in York and brought up in the West Yorkshire mill
town of Heckmondwike, the eldest grandchild of a huge extended family.
She left school at fifteen and
went to work in an asbestos factory. After working in various jobs, including
bacon-packer and escapologist’s assistant (she was The Lovely Tanya), she
returned to full-time education and did a BA in history at Manchester and
post-graduate studies at Oxford.
She stayed in Oxford working as a recruitment consultant
for many years and it was there that she met and married her husband, Vic.
In 2001 they retired and moved to Southern Spain where
they live with their rather eccentric dog and cat. Besides writing, she enjoys
reading, knitting and doing fiendishly difficult logic puzzles.
Her first book, Take One At Bedtime, was published in April 2011 and the second, Domingo’s Angel, was published in July 2011. Her novella, Doppelganger, was published in the anthology Curious Hearts in July
2011, Uncle Vernon, was published in Spellbound, in November
2011, Jamey and the Alien and Uncle
Albert’s Christmas were published
in Warm Christmas Wishes in December 2011, Mantequero was published
in the anthology Winter Wonders in December 2011 and Away With the
Fairies, her first self-published story, in September 2012.
Her new anthology, with Tara Fox Hall, Bedtime
Shadows, a collection of spooky, speculative and romance stories, was
published 24th September 2012.
Her new novel, All in the Mind, about an old
woman who mysteriously begins to get younger, was published 29th
October 2012.
Turning Back the Clock, a short horror story, will appear in
Horrific Histories by Hazardous Press in April 2013.
Facebook Author Page
Goodreads Author Page
Amazon Author Page
US: amazon.com/author/jennytwist
Thanks for hosting my ramblings once again, Mysti.
ReplyDeleteLove
Jenny
xxx
A great conversation starer Jenny. I have those very same provisos. My belief construct has us all meeting up again one day -- the soul village, as it were. Still, I hate the thought of running out of time with the people I care about in there here and now. I don't think I'd enjoy being the "last man standing" either. As far as living forever and expanded longevity goes, I'd think we'd better get on the stick where resources are concerned. I wouldn't mind living longer in harmony in a reasonably shared planet.
DeleteRose
Very thoughtful… and excellent questions that are indeed significant and timely. Robert Heinlein wrote about this in a terrific sci-fi fantasy story, Methuselah's Children, and overpopulation definitely ended up being a major concern. But added longevity could be a boon for space travel, which is one way to relieve the stress on the planet.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I'd want to live forever, but then I'm still in the middle of my journey, and unless the Fates have something else in store, I have at least 70 years to go. On the one hand, immortality would give me enough time for all the reading I could ever want! And time to master things I've always wanted to learn, like playing the piano properly, guitar, and making quilts. On the other hand, it would be terribly boring after a while. And lonely.
John Wyndham thought it might get boring (The Seeds of Time). He imagined a race of immortals who had become jaded and effete. But in Trouble with Lichen, he saw it as a liberation for the human race, something that would make us think about what we were doing to the planet, since the consequences would happen in our own lifetime. I'd be willing to give it a go. And you wouldn't be lonely if all the people you loved were immortal as well.
DeleteHugs
Jenny
xx
In my morning rounds of non-fiction (?), I came upon this article -- seems appropriate to link here!
ReplyDeletehttp://io9.com/the-perfect-health-regimen-that-only-an-absolute-dictat-472623849
Great article. Everyone should break off at this point to read it.
Deletexx
Two words to solve the problems arising from longevity or immortality: Zombie Apocolypse.
ReplyDeleteI'm kidding, kind of.
Your question is quite a poser, a real worm-can opener, and one that inevitably leads to heated arguments about politics.
So, now that I think about it, a Zombie Apocolypse would solve a lot of issues.
Hi SC.
DeleteI thought I'd replied to you, but it seems my reply has disappeared!
Zombie Apocalypse would certainly deal with all the problems, but it's not the way I want to go!
xxx
Well, one thing I would not want to be to achieve immortality is a blood sucking vampire. lol
ReplyDeleteI think modern medicine has extended the lives of many who would rather not have had them extended, usually in hindsight. Just look at the filled nursing homes to see that. A lot would prefer the option of joining loved ones in heaven instead of just existing here.
Yes, for some reason, seventy no longer seems to be old.
Jenny, I loved your book, All in The Mind. If only that was a possibility, to go back in time to enjoy younger life again.
Leo
Hi Leo
DeleteI couldn't agree more. I would certainly rather die than be turned into a blood-sucking monster that can only go out at night. And I certainly see no point in extending life unless it's good quality. Maybe they would finally introduce the right to die, but that would be a whole new article.
And thank you so much for your kind words about All in the Mind
Love
Jenny
xxxx
I'm scared to even contemplate the thought of being able to live forever.
ReplyDeleteFour Leaf Clover
Hi Sumita.
DeleteHow nice to meet you.
I hope that if the possibility ever arises we will be given a choice. God forbid that anyone should be forced to live forever against their will.
XX
Great post. My daughter's Battle of the Books team read the book "Tuck Everlasting" by Natalie Babbit, which poses this question. The main character, a 10 year old girl, meets a family that drank from a spring that gave them eternal life, with one son age 17, fovever, and the other 22, and then the adults in middle-age. They talk about the downside - losing those you love, having to move so people don't get suspicious, watching the world change while you don't. It's a great question to consider - is it a blessing or a curse?
ReplyDeleteHi Christina
DeleteI've not read Tuck everlasting. It sounds just up my street. There's a book by Poul Anderson called something like Tales of the Immortals which looks at it from just that point of view. There are a few - very few - immortals and they have to suffer their loved ones growing old and dying whilst they go on forever.
I don't think if it happens it will happen that way. I think we'll all live forever or at least age so slowly that we'd have vastly extended lives.
I think it COULD be a blessing but we'd have to think very carefully about how to manage such a scenario.
One of my newest critique partners just got a novel accepted with this very theme. A few immortals that walk the earth, suffering through losing loved ones. And some of the loved ones are different kinds of immortals, whose bodies die, but the soul lives on. So the true body immortals have to search out their "soulmate" if they want to find them again. Quite a heart-wrenching process, I would imagine.
DeleteThere were two ways I addressed immortality in my stories.
ReplyDeleteSquad V in particular dealt with the effect of living forever on one's psychology. Survival fixation and living outside of social rules led to extreme sociopathic behavior, which was part of why Squad V's covert combat arms charter was geared to "pacification" by fire without exception.
In Flipspace, which I have yet to submit for publication, immortality is the result of reaching a point in science. It becomes possible to save backup copies of a person's neural synaptic pathways. These can be downloaded either back into a damaged brain, once repaired, or into recloned body from their adult stem cells. However, the third stories deals with the effect of those who are the first to undergo the procedure.
-John Steiner
Hi John.
DeleteI might have known you'd have written on the subject!
I have a half-formed story along the lines of your second theme. It sort of feels like it ought to be possible, doesn't it?
Love
Jenny
xx
I used one of my "Fire Alive!" characters as well as a couple of the Tampered Tales stories. In "Fire Alive!" there was the legal issues around whether a neurologically reconstituted individual was still considered the same person. But the U.S. Army Medical Corps colonel advocating for the "Xerxes Protocol" said that the human body replaces its cells and the matter composing them so often that it's a wonder people are considered to be the same as even five years prior.
DeleteI'm still ironing out what the legality in Flipspace is, but I've narrowed it down to the above mentioned surviving stem cells and the idea that the stored neural synaptic pattern can't change or degrade beyond a certain percentage. For those who believe it's unnatural or feel they've lived long enough they add, "Do Not Reconstitute" to their medical file.
There's a type of frog that can let itself be frozen solid without dying. Most of the cells shut down, but ice crystals don't form, causing them to rupture. A tiny handful of cells remain active, effectively turning the animal from an amphibian to a colony of single celled organisms. Then, after it thaws out, the body and brain reboot, and it's seen as being the same frog as before.
Blimey!
DeleteI'm a member of the A-Z team just checking in. Glad to see that everything is going smoothly for you during the Challenge! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping in, DL! It's going very well. I'm loving all the variety in these posts :)
DeleteI've always recoiled at the very thought of immortalituy. Talk about crowded! In my view euthanesia is a subject we all outght to be taking seriously. My grandmother lived to nearly 105, she wasn't ill or suffering, but I know that she wanted to die for at least a decade. Why prolong life beyond what is tolerable?
ReplyDeleteGilli x
Dear Gilli
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree with you more. It seems obscene to me that there are people in the world dying for lack of food or decent medical care and we keep people alive against their will, not only refusing to give them the choice, but threatening to prosecute anyone who is prepared to help them.
I find Terry Pratchett's predicament heart-rending. Why won't they let the poor chap choose his moment and die in his own garden whilst he still has his faculties?
This is a great conversation. At first thought, I think we'd all LIKE to live forever, but in all reality, would it really be the best? If we were immortal, would we still find the drive to accomplish great things as we do with a mortal life? Would we truly appreciate those we love, the things we are blessed with, a beautiful sunrise?
ReplyDelete