Everyone in a developed country over the age of 18 has probably heard the question before “would you rather die tomorrow or live forever?” The correct answer to that question is “Yeah, I’d probably let me stab me and bleed out slowly tomorrow” or something like that. You know, death. Yeah, that sounds terrifying, but you know what sounds worse? Immortality, living forever; that shit is going to fucking kill you (metaphorically).
Really, you don’t believe me? The oldest verified living person Jeanne Calment, and she was French. Or is that not enough? Okay, what if I said that these older people are not alive in your sense of the word. It’s sad to say, and this may offend you dear reader, but our generation (you know, 20-somethings to 30-somethings) is not going to look like these masters when we’re all over the age of 60. Nope, not these pros either. You’re getting closer, probably. That’s how fast food, pollution, and video games have screwed us.
“But Kelli, I’m healthy, fit, and you are just being ridiculously fatalistic! Just because as a whole we might not live as long as our parents doesn’t mean I won’t, as an individual, live longer than MY parents. If I am going to live forever than I’m assuming that I will be Superman, a man (or woman) of steel.”
Okay, fine. Fuck me, your immortality makes you invincible. Your skin has some weird effect that makes physics moot and you will live forever as a twenty something that you are. Cool, let’s do that because people like arguing. As mentioned above I’m assuming you, dear argumentative reader, are in college because The Sundial is a college based humor magazine. Next assumption, you are between the ages of 18–25. So, you are a Superman like being that can survive any damage thrown your way and you don’t need to eat or drink unless you just want to. Let’s make a rough outline of your life, because I’m writing this to convince you that you should probably be happy that you are going to die.
2200 C.E.: You are now the oldest sentient living being in the animal kingdom! Celebrate, you’ve earned it! Thanks to some genie that appeared for no fucking reason after you had the billionth packet of Lipton’s Earl Grey, you became immortal at the age of 20 in 2014. Good for you, tomorrow is your 208th birthday, jesus fuck.
You have been on Earth as Halley’s comet passed in 2061 and 2137; the rise and fall of nations through wars and revolutions; you saw populations slowly increase and decrease; you saw humanity survive the melting of the ice caps (and hopefully their reformation); and you were there when George Lucas released Star Wars 10, directed by Michael Bay. Have people noticed that you do not age? Or that you can get shot and brush it off like a paper football? You should watch for that.
5000 C.E.: You are 3007 years old. That means since you were born the Sun has gone around the earth 3007 times. You have faked your own death and had shady forms of plastic surgery to stay out of the public eye and CONSTANT scientific investigation. Not only that, but hopefully you stocked up on some sort of backup for your brain, like Dumbledore’s pensieve. If not, you do not remember anything that you cherished when you were 20. Okay, that’s a lie. You do not correctly remember anything you cherished when you were 20. Pop quiz, what was your Grandmother’s name?
10,000 C.E.: You have lived 8007 years now. You have been in 5 Hollywood films at this point in your life. They were all released on Betamax because apparently “history repeats itself” was more cyclical than any of us thought. You do not remember most of your life because the brain isn’t meant to last this long. You have been married numerous times, but the fact that your longest marriage lasted less than 1% of your lifespan makes them all kind of insignificant.
100,000 C.E.: Evolution has caught up with you. Evolutionary biology is pretty hard to predict, but I’m going to guess that the average person now looks like this, if other people are still around. You are officially a freak not just because you wear socks with sandals, but because you do not fit the textbook form of human anatomy.
1,000,000 C.E.: You are officially older than any other known biological organism. I waited until this point to say this because I don’t study biology. On a side note, your new favorite character ever is Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen. Let’s ignore the fact that you’ve probably gone through a mass extinction at this point, and we’ll just say that technology has advanced so far that whatever society is now can avoid all forms of threat.
1,000,000,000 C.E.: If you remember your original last name at this point then you deserve the Nobel peace prize. You have been on the earth for more than a sixth of the time that it has existed. In the year [ridiculously large number] the descendants of Homo Sapiens made contact with another form of intelligent life! They didn’t keep in touch after they found out they were extremely racist. What matters is the fact that there is finally an answer to the “ARE WE ALONE” question. That’s a nice consolation to the fact that you don’t find orgasms enjoyable anymore.
From now on, I am going to call our species descendants société, because that’s the French word for society. At this point there is a >99% chance that you hate society, so a French word is appropriate.
5,000,000,000 C.E.: BIG THINGS HAVE HAPPENED, AND YOU CANNOT REMEMBER THEM. Every constellation that was recognized in 2014 is gone. The Andromeda Galaxy has merged with the Milky Way Galaxy, making it the Milk And Whey Galaxy. If no stars hit our solar system, then life is still a thing on earth. You do not know what your birth name was. English has changed and transformed so drastically that you cannot even physically make the sounds that are part of société’s common language.
Société has exhausted Science and have answered every objective question. If you’re wondering, société figured out how to cure death, but philosophers convinced the general populace that being alive forever would suuuuuck. You came out of hiding after this, and it was awkward. It’s cool that everyone’s finally interested in philosophy though.
Also, everyone is abandoning Earth because it’s going to be consumed by the sun. You found a nice place on a small planet in the middle of the Whogivesacrap galaxy. Benefits? No French people. Drawbacks? You’re still alive and you are regretting it.
10,000,000,000 C.E.: After looking at your calendar, you finally understand the importance of scientific notation. You have been married countless times, and you remember none of their names. You may remember faces, but names are one abstraction too far. Pop-quiz: what brand was your first car? What the hell is a car?
Days move by like seconds due to the fact that your life has lasted so long. Days move by like seconds because your life has lasted so long. How do you spend your time? Everything must seem pointless.
1012 C.E.: Resources are scarce. Very scarce. You probably have enough to eat once every decade or so. Hey, but you’re alive though right? There’s that.
1014 C.E.: Either all the stars in the universe are starting to burn out, or everything is slowly starting to collide into everything else. This all depends on the density of dark matter. It doesn’t really matter, because there’s basically nothing to do anyways. You could read something, if you understand the language you’re reading, if books are still a thing, and if you still have enough light to read.
1020 C.E.: You have mined and used all the resources on and in your little hermits shack of a planet. If the universe kept expanding into the abyss, then you have nothing to do besides read in braille. If it is condensing back up again than what the hell? You’re just waiting for everything to start all over again. FYI, recent observations are leaning towards the universe infinitely expanding.
1050 C.E.: Either nothing is going to ever happen again besides you floating in deep space, or you get crushed into a singularity that defies physics and makes turns into the Big Bang #2: Electric Boogaloo. Hope we leave out France the second time the universe happens.
Also, most elements on the periodic table don’t exist anymore. So, hope you don’t like gold or most forms of solid matter.
10100 C.E.: As something called Hawking radiation makes the last black hole disappear, you see the list of high scores that appears once everything else is gone and the universe is boring as hell. You read through the scores, and the first name you recognize is René Descartes. Some French dude got third, and you’re not even in the top ten.
But hey, you’re immortal! Eventually you will go insane, I’d hope.
-Kelli Knipe, Staff Writer
Kelli is an aspiring writer, sociologist, humorist, and teacher. He wants to be four things, so that’s gonna end bad, probably. A lot more effort was put into this article than it was worth.