What would you do if you were immortal?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Not Johnathan Swift immortal where you just keep getting older and are unable to die. The good kind of immortal. Like Highlander or Tolkien immortals who get into the prime of their physical life and just stay that way until something comes along and seriously messes them up. You don’t get sick. You are essentially immune to poison (and presumably even moderate radiation that would kill a human in a day or two). You can survive any injury that doesn’t kill you within, oh, let’s call it 5 minutes. If you can just hang on for 5 minutes after a 20,000 foot freefall or not bleed out after a shotgun blast, you’ll make it. You can drown and of course deep sea pressure will crush you and oxygen starvation will suffocate you. With a serious injury you might lose a limb (do Tolkien elves regrow limbs?), limbs might even grow back, but all-in-all you’ll be right as rain in a couple of weeks in the most severe cases.

What will you do? I’m pretty happy as an insurance guy, but I’m going to be ready for a change when I retire in 20 years. After that, I might have 15 years of steadily failing health before I greet the reaper as a long anticipated friend. But…if I’m immortal. If I’m not only going to not die, but not lose my current state of health, how much longer would I do that for a living?

My first answer is I’d work for the next 25 years or so until my house is paid off and I have some kind of wealth to live off of and then start doing stuff I enjoy. But what is that? The stuff I enjoy (building things, repairing houses & cars, gardening) all require money. And I wouldn’t want to taint those things by letting them fall under the category of “job.”

Being a mortal, I can’t escape the need to keep one eye on the calendar, even when I pretend the calendar is just there to remind me when the leaves change and when the weather will become warm again. So I need some help here.

What would you do?

2

ed - deleted

3

Well for a start, despite the OP’s career, stop paying my life insurance.

4

I’d long for everlasting death.

5

Bury myself in the desert until the human race evolves to become fit for polite society.

6

Run far and hide deep.

7

Enjoy the ride I guess. I don’t know if I fully subscribe to singularianism or the concept of boot strapping to immortality, but the 22nd century will see some amazing advances in every field imaginable. So I will mostly just hang out and learn, picking whatever info I can to improve my life. I have no idea what kind of advances the 23rd century will create, but I’m sure I’ll miss them.

Despite the fact that people think they’ll enjoy retirement, I think a lot of people end up traveling for a year or two, then get sick of it. I don’t know what I’d do with myself, I don’t really do much now.

I’d have to pay the bills though, like you said I’d probably try to grind up a bankroll and then look into becoming a hermit or traveler.

Have you ever seen the movie the man from earth? I thought that was a good one and it touched on this subject.

8

Get a katana and practice, practice, practice.

9

I would learn kung-fu. Read a lot of books. Have sex with a lot of girls. and do a lot of fun, creative, crazy things.

10

I’d be Hooper.

11

I’d have a ball, living dangerously, taking risks, cleaning up on high-yield long-term investments, and just generally outliving the hell out of everybody.

12

The immortality you describe is not like in Highlander at all. You say you will survive anything that dosn;t kill you in 5min, but in Highlander they will survive anything short of decapitation.

The way for describe it, I’m not sure. You can still die from anything that kills instantly, so it isn;t helpful in lots of cases.

But if I was like in Highlander or Wolverine, I think I’d become a crime fighter.

13

First I’d have to plan out how I’d deal with the downsides of immortality…

I’ll watch my wife grow old and die as well as my kids, grandkids, and so on. Do I want to fake my death at some point and cut the ties, or do I want to maintain a relationship with my descendents? How will they deal with the fact that I’m frozen in time, while they grow older? Will that strain our relationship?

Plus, if others knew you were immortal would they want to marry you? I’m not sure i’d want to marry someone who was immortal…

Unless I cut my ties every so often and move on to maintain my anonymity, I’ll become famous. If my immortality is discovered, the press will hound me, and doctors will seek me out to discover my secret. I’ll have to deal with being a celebrity in the public eye.

I believe that what brings life meaning is the relationships that are built, so I think I’d maintain relationships with my family despite that meaning that I’d be seeing them all meet their deaths one by one.

Before anyone figured out I was immortal, I’d see if there were any financial instruments that paid out money starting at 90 (for example) until death. Or if there was a job I liked that offered a pension that was paid out from retirement to death, I’d take that job.

I’d start a journal or diary, and publish a new volume every decade or so to help bring in some income. I’d save a little bit of money every year. If I could save 2 million dollars, I could just live on the interest (ignoring inflation).

I’d try and take a college course every year - languages, science, and anything else that interested, so that 50 years from now I’d be a true “renaissance” man. I’d keep doing that throughout my immortality so I maintained my relevance. Maybe I would teach an occasional part-time course.

I’d need to renew myself every now and then, so every 30-70 years I’d like to move to a different country and live there. Spain, France, etc. Not just visit, but live an entire “life” there. New friends, maybe a new wife, family, etc.

In the end though, perhaps going through an endless cycle of seeing my loved ones die will take it’s toll - that along with the fact others will see me as a freak. It’s very likely my immortal life would be a sad one, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up taking my own life…

14
  1. Help people
  2. Learn things
  3. Goof off

In that order.

15

Maybe you could look for an answer to the question while you’re at it :wink:

16

I’d take more risks. Because then they wouldn’t be risky.

I’d invest money like crazy, as being poor forever doesn’t sound like fun at all.

I’d get in shape as now it might be worth the effort.

Most of the time I’d just lay about.

17

I would definitely have the best world of Warcraft character ever.

18

I imagine that you would become just unspeakably weird. You’d probably go through a crime fighter phase until that got boring, and a sleep with lots of sexy people phase, but that would get boring. Then you’d have to keep upping the ante to feel alive so you go from crime fighter who beds models to serial killer who sleeps with circus freaks, but then even that would get boring. It kind of sounds like hell to me.

19

Asusming this removed my current physical limitations, I would get back into some serious martial arts. I’d work on more serious ways to make long term (which now has a bit different meaning) money so that I could eventually live off them (even if it took 50+ years) and then just spend my time learning and exploring.

Yeah, you lose all your family and friends over time. Ultimately as an immortal, this is beneficial. If 100 years from now I feel the need to take down some gang or high level person because they stupidly won’t leave me alone, there’s no one they can track down to get at me.

20

Travel and experience everything.

Leave every place I go better than when I found it.