Thread: What's more scary? The thought of death or existing forever?

I would definitely NOT want to live forever. Death (and the idea of finite timespans) is an integral aspect of our human experience. If you truly had infinite time at your disposal, I don't know what "time" would even mean, and I think our experience would be radically changed. Have you ever tried to relive a great memory and it just wasn't as good the second time? I feel like immortality would inevitably lead to trying to relive things that were only so wonderful because they were one-time events. Life is improvisation, facing the unexpected, reveling in a moment because you know it's one of a limited number of moments you have. I think these quotes relate:

"There's no story. It's just people, gestures, moments, bits of rapture, fleeting emotions. In short, the greatest story ever told." (Waking Life)

"The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it." (W.M. Lewis)

"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." (James Dean)

And here's an excerpt from a conversation I had once: Is value derived from terms of time? If you knew you had all the time in the world, if you were immortal, would it change the order in which you did things? Would there still be such thing as "priorities" (like when you say, "I can't wait for X"). Do we let some things take precedence because of the threat of death? Would you still make time to be with someone right now if you knew you would live forever and could theoretically see them infinite times in the future? I think it's critical that, limited by time, we do have to sacrifice some things to make time for others.

Finally, I think we only fear death out of a fear of the unknown. We fear the unknown more than the scariest products of our imagination. And life is all we seem to consciously know.