The Secret To Living Forever
A recent paper by a researcher at the University of Cambridge suggests the first person who will live to 1,000 has already been born. The author purports genetic medicine is advancing at such a rate, science will literally be able to "cure" old age within the next 10 years in laboratory animals and the next 25 in humans.
If that is the case, I don't know how I feel about it. Sort of seems like a huge change to our human experience. Someday not too far in the future, my romanticized ideas of life and death, of the human experience may be as ridiculous as the earth being flat I assume. Yet, until sience proves me a neandrathol of a bygone era, I will continue to believe the human experience, what makes us who we are, is a cycle which begins at birth and lasts long after our death.
I believe we already have the ability to live forever. Not in the sense science measures, but in a far more important way; we survive in the lives we touch. Yeah that probably seems corny but corny or not, I submit it is so.
To understand how long we can survive, we first have to understand what "we" are. What are we exactly? Just a bunch of cells gathered just right to create this body the world sees. Is our body us? Not really. Our bodies change throughout our lives. I don't look at all like I did in high school or grade school or when I was a toddler, yet I am still me. So what makes us, us? In my opinion our consciousness comes from the shared experiences of those around us and those we create in others. In some respects we really are what people perceive us to be.
Of course our personal sense of consciousness is the spark for who we are and is the only "me" we will ever know. The question of whether "I" survive as a consciousness well that one is up for debate I assume depending on what you think will happen to your consciousness after you die.
What I do know for sure is "we" survive after our last breath is drawn. We survive in the experiences, the memories, the people we have touched, the impact we have made on others.
I shared that philosophy with an Army buddy of mine as we were talking about how long we would be remembered after we retired from military service. Would we be remembered 2 years, 5 years, 10 years down the road? We're not Generals. We don't have books written about us. We are just a couple of regular guys who have dedicated their lives to this endeavor. My friend suggested our memories would last only as long as our last very positive or very negative experiences with the most junior subordinates whose lives we touched and only for as long as their military service. Fair assessment I assume.
However I disagreed as my philosophy on how long our "memories" would last in the military is very much my philosophy on how long our "memories" will last after we pass away. I whole-heartedly agree, those who personally remember me are tied to their own time in service in the military or in life, tied to their own mortality. Can't ask someone to remember me past their own exit. Yet, if I touch someone's life in a positive way; if I taught a young soldier how to lead, how to manage, how to care for other people, and in "life" how to love, then will my impact stop at that individual? Absolutely not. That soldier will teach his or her subordinates the lessons I taught them just as in life, hopefully my children will teach their children how to love, how to be tolerant, how to respect others, how to be honest and kind, and in turn, they will teach the next generation and the next. You see, our longevity may not come from the "memories" of those who knew us personally, but the impact we have on them.
Generations after anyone knows I ever existed on this planet, people may be passing down the lessons I taught someone I cared about eons before. I will, in essense live forever.
Friends, the impact we have is greater than any of us can truly imagine. Whether science figures out how to extend our physical lives longer or not, they will never figure out how to outlast the impact we have on this earth.
Teach your children the right things even if it doesn't seem like they listen; they hear everything you say. Be good to those you love because they will be the first to pass along your legacy when you're gone. Treat your fellow man and woman as you would hope they treat others and you. The fingerprints you leave on those you touch with word or deed will have an impact you simply cannot phathom. We're all in this together and we very well may be unknowingly extending the impact of generations long past who taught those who taught us what right looks like. Let's not let them down.
Let us join the long line of good people who know the secret to living forever isn't in science, it is in the impact we have on everyone we touch.
If that is the case, I don't know how I feel about it. Sort of seems like a huge change to our human experience. Someday not too far in the future, my romanticized ideas of life and death, of the human experience may be as ridiculous as the earth being flat I assume. Yet, until sience proves me a neandrathol of a bygone era, I will continue to believe the human experience, what makes us who we are, is a cycle which begins at birth and lasts long after our death.
I believe we already have the ability to live forever. Not in the sense science measures, but in a far more important way; we survive in the lives we touch. Yeah that probably seems corny but corny or not, I submit it is so.
To understand how long we can survive, we first have to understand what "we" are. What are we exactly? Just a bunch of cells gathered just right to create this body the world sees. Is our body us? Not really. Our bodies change throughout our lives. I don't look at all like I did in high school or grade school or when I was a toddler, yet I am still me. So what makes us, us? In my opinion our consciousness comes from the shared experiences of those around us and those we create in others. In some respects we really are what people perceive us to be.
Of course our personal sense of consciousness is the spark for who we are and is the only "me" we will ever know. The question of whether "I" survive as a consciousness well that one is up for debate I assume depending on what you think will happen to your consciousness after you die.
What I do know for sure is "we" survive after our last breath is drawn. We survive in the experiences, the memories, the people we have touched, the impact we have made on others.
I shared that philosophy with an Army buddy of mine as we were talking about how long we would be remembered after we retired from military service. Would we be remembered 2 years, 5 years, 10 years down the road? We're not Generals. We don't have books written about us. We are just a couple of regular guys who have dedicated their lives to this endeavor. My friend suggested our memories would last only as long as our last very positive or very negative experiences with the most junior subordinates whose lives we touched and only for as long as their military service. Fair assessment I assume.
However I disagreed as my philosophy on how long our "memories" would last in the military is very much my philosophy on how long our "memories" will last after we pass away. I whole-heartedly agree, those who personally remember me are tied to their own time in service in the military or in life, tied to their own mortality. Can't ask someone to remember me past their own exit. Yet, if I touch someone's life in a positive way; if I taught a young soldier how to lead, how to manage, how to care for other people, and in "life" how to love, then will my impact stop at that individual? Absolutely not. That soldier will teach his or her subordinates the lessons I taught them just as in life, hopefully my children will teach their children how to love, how to be tolerant, how to respect others, how to be honest and kind, and in turn, they will teach the next generation and the next. You see, our longevity may not come from the "memories" of those who knew us personally, but the impact we have on them.
Generations after anyone knows I ever existed on this planet, people may be passing down the lessons I taught someone I cared about eons before. I will, in essense live forever.
Friends, the impact we have is greater than any of us can truly imagine. Whether science figures out how to extend our physical lives longer or not, they will never figure out how to outlast the impact we have on this earth.
Teach your children the right things even if it doesn't seem like they listen; they hear everything you say. Be good to those you love because they will be the first to pass along your legacy when you're gone. Treat your fellow man and woman as you would hope they treat others and you. The fingerprints you leave on those you touch with word or deed will have an impact you simply cannot phathom. We're all in this together and we very well may be unknowingly extending the impact of generations long past who taught those who taught us what right looks like. Let's not let them down.
Let us join the long line of good people who know the secret to living forever isn't in science, it is in the impact we have on everyone we touch.
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