I Don't Want to Live Forever

When I was ten, I suddenly became afraid of sleeping in the dark. We had just moved into a new place, and the bedroom I shared with my brother had no windows.

Consequently, it was pitch black when we went to bed at night. I’d lay awake imagining that this was what death must be like.

I eventually overcame my fear with the help of a nightlight - the existence of which I fiercely denied in my later adolescent years; you can’t be too careful around the fellas.

As an adult, my fear of death has manifested itself in mild hypochondria - but other than the occasional benign mystery lump sending me into a two-week, ‘already planning my funeral’ tailspin, I have it mostly under control.

Nothing shapes our actions and attitudes like our fear of death.

Apparently, tech entrepreneur and multi-millionaire Bryan Johnson doesn’t fear death at all because he doesn’t believe it’s inevitable. He asserts that aging and ultimately dying are reversible and has been spending millions of dollars trying to prove it.

Time Magazine sent journalist Charlotte Alter to spend a day with him, and the resulting article was a fascinating showcase of two competing approaches to dealing with the reality of our mortality.

Bryan believes he will beat death and live forever.

He’s spent over $4 million developing a life-extension system called Blueprint. A team of doctors continually monitor and refine his lifestyle to reduce what Johnson calls his “biological age.”

He takes 111 pills daily, has an unimaginably strict diet, and works out constantly. He rejects appeals to a “life is short, make it count” philosophy. He dismisses all short-term thinking as a product of a paradigm that believes dying is inevitable.

Bryan summarizes his reductionist view of life in response to one of Charlotte’s questions. He says, “Whether we're talking about falling in love, or having sex, or going to the baseball game, you're talking about biochemical states in the body.”

As a result of Bryan’s religious devotion to the future and his goal of not dying, he and his followers have chosen to “...divorce ourselves from all human custom. Everything: all philosophy, all ethics, all morals, all happiness.”

Wow. That’s intense.

Throughout the article, Charlotte (the journalist) is the voice of reason. She maintains a polite but cynical tone in describing Bryan’s lifestyle choices. She plays along and takes a few sips of his daily smoothie that, in her words, tastes like a foot.

She reminds him and the rest of us, “Surely, there must be more to living than simply maintaining adequate oxygen in your spleen.”

In the simplest terms, her view of life is summarized in the last sentence of the article: “I didn’t want to stop wanting. Life’s too short.”

Bryan and Charlotte could not view the world and the purpose of life any more differently. Bryan is, at best, a crazy scientific pioneer and, at worst, a self-absorbed narcissist who divorced his wife and abandoned his kids to devote his life to living more life. (Seems kind of circular, right?)

I can only imagine what 130-year-old Bryan will look like. Shiny white teeth (all fake), hair hanging on by a thread, skin held together by duct tape and self-control, every joint replaced, every organ synthetic. Oh, and everyone he loves who chose not to follow his plan? Dead.

Sincere effort (and a lot of money!) will give way to the inevitable entropy enforced on us all.

Bryan’s plan has little hope of ending well, but Charlotte’s “you only live once, you might as well eat pizza” philosophy, while more common and certainly more realistic, isn’t exactly hopeful either. As I’ve grappled with my own fear of death, these are some of my conclusions...

Our bodies and this world are decaying and will ultimately end. So far, death has never failed.

Honestly, that might be a good thing. Living forever as reality is currently constructed might be the worst thing that could happen to us (considering the hypothetical 130-year-old Bryan mentioned above). In light of this, we need hope for now and for later.

My hope for both lies in the answer to the basic question, “What am I?”.

If all I am is a product of extraordinary chance - nothing more than a highly evolved animal unavoidably decaying, then you either make the most of the finite life you have or you do everything you can to extend it. But either way, you have one shot to make it count.

What if we aren’t purely material? What if our yearning for immortality is more than a convenient delusion - but instead, a hidden fact?

I believe God created the earth and everything in it, including you and me. Life is no accident but rather the work of an extraordinary designer. This means we should care for our bodies to make the most of our time because we were created with a purpose.

Don’t waste it! Pursue the truth, love well, travel the world, serve others, and sure - eat some pizza occasionally, too.

I also believe we will go on forever - and for those who seek and ultimately find God, it will be eternity spent with Him. This gives me profound hope for the future.

While I sympathize with Bryan and Charlotte, I don't think either has the right view of reality. And the good news is that it’s not too late.

My fear of death started a process in my life that led me to a personal relationship with the One who made me - and it changed everything. I believe the same answers are available to Bryan, Charlotte, and anyone who honestly seeks them out.

I am also happy to report that I no longer use a nightlight.

Want to listen to the conversation related to this blog? Listen to Episode 490: Who Wants to Live Forever?