If We Lived Forever, Would We Appreciate Life As Much As We Do Now?

I have been reading up on longevity studies, and how certain scientists suggest that it might be possible to live forever, or at least for a much longer time than our current lifespan. It made me wonder if that's actually a good thing or not.

Transcript

Hey guys,

I hope that you guys are doing amazing wherever you are in the world.

My name is Boomshika and I welcome you to my channel.

I hope that you guys have been enjoying my podcast,

My channel,

Wherever you guys are listening to me from.

And if you guys have any questions at all,

All my contact information is in the description below.

In this video,

I want to speak to you guys about a concept that you probably heard a lot before.

If you have any kind of learning of Buddhism or if you've looked into Zen Buddhism or any kind of Buddhism or if you've been looking into anything to do with meditation,

You've probably heard this before.

I just want to expand on it and explain a little bit of my own thoughts on the subject.

Which is basically the idea that it's because we die and because things end,

Because things are not permanent,

That's the reason why everything is so much sweeter and so much more important,

So much more precious.

It's because it ends.

I've been thinking about this a lot.

I've been reading about the fact that a lot of scientists out there believe that it's possible to make it so that human beings live forever.

Now I don't know how long that's going to take or if it's even possible.

Obviously there's always a lot of positivity involved with our optimism involved in science research.

But if it is possible,

Awesome,

I mean that's one of the things that everyone wants to do is live forever.

I was kind of thinking about it for myself if I want to live forever and I was actually thinking that,

I mean I love living.

I love the fact that I am alive and I love the fact that I'm here right now.

I've done a podcast episode or an episode on it already explaining how life means a lot to me.

I love the act of living.

I love the act of being a human being.

But I also feel like the reason I love it so much is because it's going to end soon or it has a sort of expiration date.

It's not that I'm going to be alive forever or I'm going to be here forever.

I'm here for a little bit of time and it's a very short period of time.

It might be 40 years,

It might be 50,

60,

Whoever knows but it's still a very short period of time and I'm here.

And because I know that the time is very limited,

My time here is very limited.

That's the reason I feel like every moment is so much sweeter and it's so much more poignant to me and so much more important.

As I said,

So much more precious to me because it matters because I know that it's not going to last forever.

I know that it's here for a couple of minutes and then I'm here for a few more minutes and then boom,

I'm gone kind of thing.

Maybe I have life after that,

Maybe I'm reincarnated,

Who knows.

But in this moment in time,

All I know is I have this life to lead,

I have a few more years left and I get to enjoy it as much as possible because I know that it's going to end.

But if I knew that I was never going to die and I knew that I had the entirety of eternity to live,

I mean for the rest of eternity,

I'm going to be here.

I just feel like,

I know it's a terrible thing to say and perhaps I'm just being a killjoy but I feel like it puts a damper on the whole situation.

It makes me not feel as alive anymore and not as interested in the act of living because what does it matter anyway?

Nothing I do is going to kill me really and I'm going to live forever.

Or that's the idea that I have,

I'm going to live forever.

I'm here for a long,

Long time.

I could waste a couple of years or 15 years or 100 years and nothing would matter because I'm going to live for another eternity.

And so that kind of idea for me especially,

And I think about this a lot before I go to bed or when I wake up,

I think to myself,

I just love the act of waking up or going to bed.

I wake up every morning just feeling so grateful that I got another day to live and whenever I go to bed at night,

I feel so grateful again that I had a whole beautiful day to live and I get to sleep at night,

Relax,

Rest and rejuvenate and then get to do this again tomorrow hopefully.

So I feel so lucky that that is my gift.

The universe has given me this gift that I get to be alive and I get to repeat these days over and over again for a few years and then I get to give up and go on to the next thing,

Whatever that next thing might be,

Whatever your belief system might be.

And so I don't know,

For me specifically I find it really…yeah so I really feel like I actually don't want to live forever which is maybe a terrible thing to say and maybe I'm not looking at it from the right perspective.

That's the reason I wanted to do this podcast or this video as well is because I wanted to kind of put this idea out there.

Maybe I'm being a pessimist,

I have no idea,

But I wanted to put this idea out there and kind of get your feedback on it.

What do you guys think?

Do you think that you want to live forever or do you think that the life that you've been given right now,

Whatever,

However long it is,

Is perfect for you?

Some of the things that I wanted to speak about specifically with regards to the idea of living right now,

I mean think about it this way.

There are a lot of people out there who know that they're only here for a few years on this planet,

Maybe 70 years at most.

That's really like a very high max.

Most people end up living maybe 55,

60,

65 years maybe,

I have no idea.

Mostly that kind of range,

Right?

It's not really that long of a time.

If you think about it,

60 years,

65 years is not really that long.

But so many of us,

Because perhaps we have this idea that we're going to live forever,

Waste so many of our years doing things that we shouldn't do or don't want to do or don't like to do because we think that we have time.

That's the reason why I feel like if we lived forever,

We would just waste our life away and do nothing because we have so many years to waste.

If we're already wasting time and we only have 60,

70 years to live,

Then how much more of time would be wasted if we had hundreds of thousands of years to live?

I can't even imagine the amount of waste of time that's going to happen.

Is that the idea so that we have more time to waste if we can just kind of dilly dally and take our time and not really do things that matter and pretend like we're going to live forever because we are and things like that?

Is that what it is?

Or is it that maybe because we have more time,

We can take the time to understand ourselves better and we can take the time to figure out what our real desires are and what we want to spend our time doing and then take our time getting there?

I really don't know and that's the reason I'm actually putting this idea or this thought out there.

I don't want to be a pessimist.

The fact that futuristic people are actually thinking about the fact about making human beings live forever,

I think it's fascinating.

I think it's interesting and I hope that the future generations will take advantage of it,

Hopefully be able to take advantage of it and be able to live forever.

I can't even imagine the ideas of how overpopulation is going to kill the world and where are we going to live and how does the earth support all of this and are we going to move to different worlds and all that other logistical aspect of the fact that if no one dies or if everyone lives forever,

How is this world going to survive?

I'm not going to think about that part of it because that's not the idea that I want to portray in this podcast episode or in this video.

I specifically want to focus on the idea of waste and how a lot of us will end up wasting a lot of our time if we live forever because already when we live for such a short period of time,

We're already wasting so much time.

I mean think about it,

There's so many people out there who spend days and days and years and years in and out,

Year in and year out,

Working at a job that they hate,

Living with a person that they don't like anymore or married to a person that they don't like anymore,

Fighting with them all the time,

Going to work miserable,

Coming back from work miserable,

Eating crappy food,

Not taking care of themselves,

Spending more time in the hospital than at work or at home and things like that.

It's because I feel like they have this idea in their head that they're going to live forever,

That they have time to change but obviously if you guys know anything about anything,

You know that time is limited and nothing lasts forever and things are going to end faster than you can imagine.

You are going to be gone faster than you can imagine.

And to me,

The thought of the idea of thinking about death and realizing that I only have a few years left really puts this sense of urgency and this sense of wanting to do things right now inside of me.

I don't want to wait until tomorrow,

I don't want to wait until next year,

I really don't want to wait until any other point in time.

I want to do it right now.

If it's important to me,

I want to do it right now.

If I need to tell someone that I love them,

I want to do it right now.

If I want to pick up my stuff and go move to Japan,

I want to do it right now.

If I want to learn how to draw anime or manga,

Then I want to do it right now.

I don't want to think about the fact that I have tomorrow or day after tomorrow to do it because I really have no idea if I do have that time or not.

I hope I do.

I hope I have a few more years on this planet.

I hope I have a lot more years on this planet.

But really my idea with everything right now is to do it right now as much as possible.

Do not wait until tomorrow,

Do not wait until the next moment even.

Try as much as possible to do the important stuff.

Not everything obviously,

But the important stuff right now.

That's the reason why if I fight with anyone,

If I ever do,

It's been a while since I've fought with anyone.

But if I do,

Then I always make sure that I clear up the misunderstanding or whatever it is because I don't want to go to bed angry and I don't want to have that regret if something happens to that person or if something happens to me.

I don't want to have that regret that I did not leave the world on good terms.

I want to make sure that everything,

No matter what happens,

I end on good terms.

I want to make sure that all of the loose ends are tied up.

I want to make sure that if I have said anything negative to anyone,

I clear up all that stuff before I leave because you don't know,

I might not be here tomorrow.

I might not have the time to clear up all that stuff so I want to make sure that I take care of it right now in this moment in time.

Maybe that's a little bit of a dire,

Pessimistic way of looking at things but it makes me really optimistic and happy about being in this world because I've had the chance to do all the things that I wanted to do and I'm happy with the way my life has specifically turned out.

Again,

If you guys have any questions about this topic or if you have any actual suggestions on what you think about this idea of living forever or ideas on it or beliefs on it,

I'd love to hear from you guys.

I'm always looking to expand my understanding of all of the ideas I speak about and if you guys have any important suggestions for future videos,

Please let me know as well.

All my contact information is in the description below and thank you.

I shall see you guys in the next episode,

In the next video,

Wherever it is.

Bye for now.