As I've said before, I hold this blogging thing very dear and I seriously consider what you guys say to me.
========================================
Case in point, one of the comments from the previous post on immortality came from D4 saying, "It's not like you'd run out of things to do or learn, more of you'd just get "tired" of things to do and learn."
To that I couldn't really find the words to formulate my rebuttal for a while. I didn't disagree, but I felt something lacking from that reasoning. As I re-read it, -E- posted a comment pointing back to one of his earlier posts. When I initially wrote my entry I hadn't been thinking about that phrase, 'plus ca change' but as I poked around I noticed that it fit.
D4 had a point; after a couple lifetimes of living a guy might grow weary of doing, well, just about anything really. For example, I know I get tired of watching TV, even quality programming, after an extended stretch of time, and I'm not even close to immortal. Imagine a person having seen so-called 'fresh, exciting and new' shows come in every few years.
But have you ever played any of the Legend of Zelda games? Or how about a fighting game? Or an FPS? Or just about any genre of game? But I like the parallel to Zelda particularly well because, look, every game has the same plot. But guess what? They are all different enough in game mechanics, look and feel that I have never gotten the feeling, "Man, I've already done this. This isn't fun." Would I play all of them in a long marathon? No. I'm sure to get bored. But after playing one, having some time pass and then playing another I enjoy the new incarnation for its own sake.
An immortal could conceivably get bored of 'stuff' after a while but, as a human being, I don't think s/he would remain that way for the rest of his/her existence. Immortal or no, that's a human being. It doesn't matter how long that person has lived, time passes at the same rate, no? The ents and elves and dwarves might feel that a human's life passes in the blink of an eye but for a human, of any kind, every hour should still be an hour.
=========================================
It strikes me that this is all just rhetorical speculation of the kind I wouldn't tolerate in a debate concerning more down-to-earth topics. But for discussions of this nature, e.g. super powers, zombie outbreaks, etc., I let those prejudices go.
Well that's a good point. It's quite enlightening too. I myself get tired of doing some things I used to enjoy. These include watching TV shows, watching anime and playing some video games. I still play video games but not like before. Now facebook and other social networking websites are getting boring for me.
ReplyDeleteVariety is the spice of life, as some would say.
That is a very good point, and you've actually made it before. At least I think it was you, I have a shitty memory. I'd be fine as an immortal, I'd not remember doing anything. But you made the point that there are some shows and games you really get yourself into, then you just have to stop for a bit. Not because you stopped liking them, but just, because you had done it too much. I think Zelda is a good comparison to make actually. Each game is basically the same, but just different enough. I doubt I could play through them one after another, but I could certainly play through them individually with enough time between them. I think if you were immortal, and you just got tired of doing things, you could wait while, and hen just start up again after some time. I think in the good old days when vampires were more, well, vampires, they used to just sleep for a while and then come back. Even if you aren't immortal doing the same thing over and over again gets to you, and when it does, just take a break from it, and you'll be fine to do it again later.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's true. The lengths of my comment back then was more so for -me- specifically, I'd just grow bored after a while. As it is, there's plenty of time where I could be doing more where I'd rather just lay around for a while before finally getting ready to do something exciting. Doing this for the extra 3/4 hundred years wouldn't be impossible, but it wouldn't be as special, if you get what I'm saying.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is just to me, me with my personality, with my current mindset. I could change and take on a more power-packed lifestyle and all of a sudden I'll enjoy living a near-immortal life. This is likely, and it's because it's likely that I don't find the thought of immortality to be silly or a general bad idea. If someone had the chance to be immortal, and took it, I wouldn't blame them. Or rather, I wouldn't tell them they've made a mistake. I just don't think I'd I'd bite at the opportunity myself.
Such a long comment.
An immortal might get into more complex things. If I had centuarys to live I'd work on writting books, painting pictures, learning to scultp, (improve my spelling) and other things that take longer to do and don't get boring as easy. Though I would probably get "bored" as you call it for a week or to every so often but its been my experience (in my short mortal life) that its not real boredom, but is your mind taking time to process what you've learned and re-assessing what you know.
ReplyDelete@Javier: Variety IS the spice of life, I DO SAY!!! All the time!
ReplyDelete@Mark: Ack, I meant to mention vampires in there actually! Thank you for the reminder. If one's immortal life were restricted like that of a vampire, i.e. only going out at night, then I'd definitely assign more weight to D4's argument that life would just get boresome. By the way, that 'sleep' is known as torpor.
@D4: No problems with long comments! Substance enriches the soul. Also, I still wonder sometimes what you originally commented on my Rammstein post.
@Bersercules: Well written, good sir.
Thanks again for the new information. I think actually a restricted immortal life would get less tiresome, but maybe not being restricted to only going out at night. You have less chance to overdo things, and have stuff get tiresome.
ReplyDelete@Mark: Less.... Well, you might be interested to know that there's part of the psychological appeal of iProducts in a nutshell. "Oh, I know there will be an upgraded version of this in 6 months but, well, right *now* this is the best there is and I'm gonna get it."
ReplyDeleteI'll take the risk AND the freedom of choice, thanks.
I still use an old 1GB iPod Shuffle second generation I got about six years ago. That kind of mentality is something I don't like about Apple, but this isn't really about the evils of Apple.
ReplyDelete@Mark: You're right, that was a partial non-sequitur. My point stands though, I spurn the attitude of "protect me from myself"-ness.
ReplyDeleteJust checked up on the Rammstein post again to see if I remembered. Kinda do. It had to do with the release date of that single in the US being 9/11, which wasn't appropriate. Then i thought of another song by Sting that he played live about "iron and blood" or something like that. Don't... quite remember all the details of what I was GOING to say, but it had a lot of 9/11 conspiracy thingies attached to the dates and all that.
ReplyDeleteI think being immortal would only be boring if you were the only one, eventually it would feel like Groundhog Day...
ReplyDelete@Bonjour Tristesse: Hmmm, I don't find that a good comparison. Murray's character wasn't immortal at all, in fact, he got so frustrated he committed suicide a few times remember? I actually believe that because time moves on inexorably and nothing happens exactly the same way over and over (and over) the possibility of boredom is slight.
ReplyDelete