“Eternal Life”, a satirical speculative thriller for a world obsessed by longevity, imagines a society where the relationship between time and money has crystallised into a way to trade life itself. Can this help us work out how to live better?
Have you ever wondered: “what shall I do today?”
How to live my life fruitfully?
Or even: “what shall I do now?”
It’s one of life’s mysteries that:
– we all have a limited number of years, months, weeks and days to live;
– we all want to make the most of that time;
– many of us feel short of time to do the things we want;
– and yet… when we do have some free time, we’re not sure what to do with it.
It depends how you look at it. Anish Kapoor in Istanbul. Photo: Leigh Turner
The problems of choice
Part of the problem is excess choice. In 1995-98, when I was working on the handover of Hong Kong, I used to fly regularly between London and Hong Kong in business class. The job was intense, and I used to relish the thought of a 15-hour flight with no disturbances and a host of pleasures on-tap. But when I settled down into my comfy seat on the plane, I sometimes found myself overwhelmed by a kind of existential panic. Should I read that book I’d been saving for when I had a spare moment? Watch a movie? Listen to music? Read that fresh new airline copy of the Financial Times or The Economist? Gaze at the cloudscapes rolling by in the moonlight? Talk to the interesting fellow-passenger in the next seat? Ask for a drink, or some food? Or what?
OK. I don’t expect sympathy. These days I dream of business travel. But the sense of mild panic I felt as I reviewed the options available for my 15 hours was like a microcosm of the sensation we all face trying to figure out how best to use our available life-span – assuming we have time to think about it at all.
What if we watch a movie and it’s crap? We miss the chance to use that 90 minutes to talk to the interesting-looking neighbour, changing our lives forever. What if we start talking to our neighbour, he or she won’t stop talking, and we miss the chance to do read our book? Above all, I always hated (and still hate) to miss the views from the aircraft window – a wonder we should never take for granted.
People have been puzzling over these questions for millennia.
The Compleat Angler
Early Christians argued about salvation by faith, or by works.
There is no single answer. As Izaak Walton notes in his famous The Compleat Angler, first published in 1653: “I shall tell you, that in ancient times a debate hath risen, and it remains yet unresolved, whether the happiness of man in this world doth consist more in contemplation or action?”
Even if we can’t answer a question, we can entertain and educate ourselves by thinking about it. That’s why my novel Eternal Life explores these issues. I’ve blogged about this before – see eg A breakthrough in longevity: my thriller “Eternal Life” explores immortality or Beethoven and the meaning of life (links in bold italics are to other posts on this site).
Amongst other things, Eternal Life explores how people would behave differently if (i) they could choose to have shorter lives, by selling some of their life expectancy for cash (“would you rather live long and dull, or short and intense?”); and (ii) they could live forever, by becoming wealthy and buying other people’s lives.
Tithonus and immortality
The ancient Greeks explored the issue in the character Tithonus. Who was Tithonus? When Eos, Titan of the dawn, kidnapped Tithonus from the royal house of Troy to be her lover, she asked Zeus to make him immortal; but forgot to ask for eternal youth. Tithonus lived for ever but became older and older and lived in misery. I picture him as a wizened cricket, living on a bare shelf in a cell.
You can discover how Eternal Life explores the meaning of life and immortality by clicking on the links above.
Eternal Life also explores how red London Buses explain the meaning of life. Recommended.
3 Responses
Reblogged this on William Chasterson.
Really enjoyed this post, thanks for sharing. It made me think of the time technology helps me to save in all this. I have more time because of my washing machine, dishwasher, readily available gas to cook with, various travelling means to take me from a to b in a flash. Your description of the 15 hours flight was brilliant. But what if you had to make the same journey by train, or boat? Longer sections of your life would be occupied by the sheer task of travelling. Then again, that’s when it’s likely that you’d have gained so many more life adventures and memories! A difficult one, this ‘live your life to the full’ business. I will gladly explore your thinking in Biotime!
All the best, OG&Bs
Thanks Francesca! A lot to think about – the key thing is to think about it.