In a heartbeat.
Sure. I’d go back to about 30. Virginity out of the way, regular periods, good general health, and I’d know what to do to avoid my MS-like symptoms. If it was exactly the body I used to have, I’d have to get Lasik again, the horror! 
I’m an asocial engineer, so while it would suck to see people I cared for get frail, I don’t think I’d miss “personal relationships” any more than I miss them now.
I just don’t see the downside. The question sounds to me exactly equivalent to “If you were in a burning building and a firefighter put a ladder to your window, would you go down it?”.
OK, so, maybe I’m weird, but if I got this elixir, my first step after drinking it would be to look up the leading scientists working in geriatrics and volunteer as a test subject. Hell, yeah, I would want to understand how the elixir works, and so much the better if other folks understand it too.
Absolutely.
You wouldn’t be you, you’d be somebody else. Who’s to say how much of what we think of us as “wisdom” from age is little more than the simple fact that our hormones aren’t screaming like howler monkeys any more? Sure, there’s a part of me that would like to me 25 again, its just not the part I use to make decisions with. Because I’m not 25 anymore.
I’ve got friends and lovers I’ve invested 40 years into cultivating, as they have invested in me, and the return on that investment is peachy-keen, and I wouldn’t give it up for all the sixpack abs in LA.
I’d drink it.
What age would I be? Hard to say… not too young, so past 25, but even now in my mid-40’s I still look and feel pretty good. Probably 30 - I did heal better back then, and had fewer allergies.
As for outliving friends and family - I’ve already outlived most of the people I hung out with in high school (yeah, rough neighborhood) and several members of my immediate family. I think I have some idea how painful that would be, on the other hand, I keep meeting new and interesting people in my life so, presumably, I would acquire new friends and, through marriage, even new family.
When it comes to life I keep wanting to know what comes next. With a body that doesn’t age and potentially a long time to live I’d be more likely to continue to undertake projects that require years to accomplish. Even if I only lived 100 years before accident or illness killed me those years would at least be healthy years, free of debility (barring catastrophic accidents) and thus would be as fully enjoyable as my years at 20 and 30.
I had the same concerns but I figured it just meant healthwise. If it would turn back the clock on the brain’s growth then I wouldn’t be into it.
Why would it effect your ‘brain’s growth’? I don’t think your brain grows with age (at least not once you’ve achieved your full growth initially)…if anything it simply begins to degenerate as you get older. With this elixir you simply wouldn’t age…but that wouldn’t prevent you from growing or learning. It’s not a stasis field or anything. It’s just going to turn off the process that makes you age after regressing your body back to whatever approximate age you wanted to be at.
-XT
If I had to regress and forget everything I knew to do it, I’d drink it, but set my age at precisely the age I am now. (I’m only 33. That’s not too bad, and better than 70, down the road.)
Probably personal and emotional reasons. For my own part I’d probably choose my youngest daughter. However, for the purposes of this thread it’s not really a choice. Your only choice is…do you take the elixir if offered or not. You can’t give it to someone else.
It’s really a tough choice, as can be seen by several posters. As I said in the OP, for my part I’d take it, even though it’s a two edged sword and you’d be setting yourself up ultimately for loss (or not…it’s possible that with the deaths of my wife and children I’ll be ready to check out myself).
-XT
What is death if not loss of everyone? Is losing everything you’ve ever known piecemeal more difficult than losing it all at once?
I think losing everyone you know and love at once would be much harder. Losing them over time and piecemeal…well, been there and done that and have no doubts this trend will continue with or without the elixir.
-XT
I would take it in a Miami minute.
I agree. Do you think you could handle the loss of everyone you’ve ever known? Like say at about age 90 or 100, everyone you knew before you were 50 years old is dead. There are very few people left who are of your generation, you are older than most people you come across. You are old enough to be the grandfather of every prospective romantic interest. What then? What does life become then? How do you handle that?
I think if I knew it was coming I’d spend the first 50 or 60 years building up my knowledge base. I wouldn’t worry about saving for retirement, I’d work on upping my skillset and just forge ahead. THEN I would begin to build a financial empire once I have lived out the sentimental portion of my life and done the kids/grandkids thing, the normal person thing until it becomes clear and obvious that I am no longer a ‘normal’ person. By that time I should sufficiently know how to play the stock market, how to run the odds at Poker, I’d know the basic constituent parts of a great deal of manufacturing processes, have a working knowledge of anatomy as good as any first year Resident, know my basic physics/chem/bio, be fluent in several languages and several martial arts.
Actually before really moving in earnest on the corporate empire I’d spend a decade or so in a Thai Buddhist monastery learning to still my mind, then I would start the work of building something lasting and enduring. Then I would set out on being the Illuminati, because at that point there would be nothing left worth doing. By virtue of being older and healthier than the vast majority of people left I’d be in a unique power position. I could hide amongst the young pretending to be young myself, but somehow suaver and more sophisticated, not subject to the random foibles that make being in your 20s such a pain in the ass.
I think the hardest thing to handle would be the alienation of having a unique experience that you cannot expect others to have empathy for.
Yeah, I’d do it. The fact that I have no children may make a difference. But mostly, I have a giant Peter Pan complex (or Peter Pan simplex) & I know it.
Even if I drop dead at 55, being able to have the body of a 22-year-old until then is a giant gift.
Now, as for living longer, if that’s part of the deal, yeah, I can cope. It’d be a bit like being a Maia. I’d be floating around for a long time. I don’t want to be completely immortal, but an indefinite lifespan would be OK with me.
No, it’s your own, personal ending.
In a heartbeat.
I figure that there would be a way , sometime in the future with contacting other methsusalahs and perhaps hooking up with them.
Sign me up for 30 for life
Declan
I don’t get why everyone assumes they’d have to watch loved ones get old and die. The OP asks: “If there were an elixir available…” It could be “available” at every corner drugstore.
Simple answer: Yes.
Serious answer: The most important factor here is what you are not telling us. The possible drawback of the elixir is the way you will be treated by the aging.
Are you going to be held as a test subject in a lab for the next 1000 years?
Is the rest of the world going to view you with jealousy and anger?
Or is the elixir common enough not to elicit such responses?
Yes, and to you, that’s the loss of everyone and everything.