"Curse" of immortality

[Motsu]

Too big to move

You have greater strength to flail it around... you can even customize it.

A dick with a gun... a dick with laser beam... a raging cock on top of a raging cock... what a disgusting abomination. I wish I should've taped my fingers and went on with the rest of the day watching DNSL's videos.

 

[Reisinling]

The fact you have to ask means you havent thought of the subject very deeply. Like oooh young forever yay! But every single person you will ever love will die and you will literally outlive the world itself. Like do you have ANY IDEA what will happen if you simply cant die, but can still feel pain and be effect by shit like radiation? Even if you can heal from that stuff, you will live in absolute agony. You could have your body changed forever. Congratulations, a nuclear war went down and now you became a giant flesh monster.

Or the world was destroyed somehow and you're floating around in space stuck in a loop of, at the very least, suffocation.

You ram into a sun and your flesh burns but you cant die so even as you burn you have to suffer through it. Hell, what happens when you outlive the universe? Do you even COMPREHEND how apathetic you would be after just the first couple billion years? You would want to die. But sucks for you, you cant.

Think, Reisnling, think! Do you honestly believe immortality would be anything but a fucking nightmare 90% of the time?

Yeah those people are dumbfucks who just havent thought of it very well. Like itd be fun for a while but eventually nothing new is really new. We have that going on now, even.

You seriously have no idea how shitty boredom is. It's not just boredom. It's what it would make you do. How it would effect your mind. Once you've done everything for a couple hundred years, a thousand, we'll see how sane you are. Smh yall really got no imagination if any of ya think immortality is fun past the first millennium or so. And even then, I'm being generous.

The implication of the post it was the kind of immortality usually seen in media, in which you have some kind of healing factor, so you come back to being fancy alive.

If you were in space, you would never become conscious again, so its de-facto immortality (it's not suffocation that kills you in space, or in magma). Actually, if your brain is dead, if you are immortal, you don't really suffer, because once again, you can't experience it. Some bunch of cells suffers.

Also, about new- man, we are on SH. most of us read the same stories hundreds of times. And I don't know about you, but after 100 years I doubt I would remember shit about books I read hundred years ago, so I think I would actually by positively surprised by media.

I also think you are underestimating peoples ability to enjoy lazing around and sleeping and stuff. And you know, creating things. There are shit ton of people I know who don't really do "media" stuff, they just like their job, some of them work in science. And you never run out of science to find.

The idea that you need to be entertained to find life worth living is such a luxury of modern times, even though suicides are quite likely more common now than they were two hundred years ago, and I assure you they had far fewer entertainment venues than we do. We are just drug addicts, high from consuming constant doses of cocaine. A few hundred years of detox and we would be back on track

 

[Shard]

There are a handful of major issues with immortality, or even just extended lifespan in a human.

We have limited memory, you will eventually forget almost everything that has happened to you. It won't take long before you can barely remember a tenth of your life, then a hundredth, then you may end up forgetting who you are. You may focus on events that happened, or you may focus on the core of your personality, but either way, you will lose a lot of what makes you into you.
Everything is variations of the same handful of things, so extreme boredom will occur quite quickly. Eventually, even years will become so similar that you cannot differentiate between them.
You will outlive everyone you know, and everyone you love will die. And eventually, you will become numb to it because it happens so frequently.
Depending on the form of immortality, you may end up suffering for eternity with no way to fix it.
Eventually, the combination of factors will result in you viewing others as barely better than insects and taking on an absolutely inhuman mindset.

Even a mere thousand years will result in a being as alien to us mentally as we are to fish.

 

[Mechaphobic]

I think it really depends how the immortality works. The human body constantly sheds dead cells. Every 10 years the body you are in has been completely replaced as every cell has died and been replicated. We actually believe this is the main reason memory fails with time.


This would actually be interesting to see, because we only have guesses on the human brain and what it can hold. We don't completely understand consciousness in the first place. We have made a lot of guesses over the years, but then we find something that proves it all wrong.


I think assuming every immortal would become inhumane is assuming to many things. I feel like we would see people becoming hyper-humane as well. I have never seen an instance, where you only get one extreme. I think this would happen with more frequency if you had lots of them. I don't think a person's core values would change that much.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

The implication of the post it was the kind of immortality usually seen in media, in which you have some kind of healing factor, so you come back to being fancy alive.

If you were in space, you would never become conscious again, so its de-facto immortality (it's not suffocation that kills you in space, or in magma).

I know but you cant die and I just dunno what healing factors would entail with being out in space. But lacking consciousness makes sense, but that's not living either. Its essentially the same as death.

Actually, if your brain is dead, if you are immortal, you don't really suffer, because once again, you can't experience it. Some bunch of cells suffers.

Also, about new- man, we are on SH. most of us read the same stories hundreds of times.

Yeah but everyone gets sick of it EVENTUALLY. Maybe we read other stuff and recharge, but we dont usually keep reading the same shit over and over again endlessly.

And I don't know about you, but after 100 years I doubt I would remember shit about books I read hundred years ago,

Which is another thing. Would a type of schizophrenia develope after living that long? Like I cant remeber what I had for dinner last week and that's normal. But if I was immortal, what would happen to my long term memories? I dont THINK the human brain can get overloaded on memories alone. But even if you dont suffer through so much trauma throughout your immorality that you get PTSD, what if you just start losing most of your memories because your brain cant handle it? Even when you forget things, the memories dont disappear. They just arent available to you.

so I think I would actually by positively surprised by media.

I also think you are underestimating peoples ability to enjoy lazing around and sleeping and stuff. And you know, creating things. There are shit ton of people I know who don't really do "media" stuff, they just like their job, some of them work in science. And you never run out of science to find.

Yeah bud but you arent thinking of this in terms of literal eons. You want to laze around? Fine, but you wont do that all thentine. Let alone hundreds of years. You would wanna move eventually. But even then, after eons, what's the point? Nothing would interest you. As for creating, how long until you get bored of that too? Because you will. It's just an inevitability. If I get bored of shit NOW, do you think I wouldnt get sick of something i have been doing for literal millennia?

The idea that you need to be entertained to find life worth living is such a luxury of modern times, even though suicides are quite likely more common now than they were two hundred years ago, and I assure you they had far fewer entertainment venues than we do.

Isnt that cuz they were too busy actually living life? Nowadays we are so distracted by everything that its unhealthy for our mental state.

We are just drug addicts, high from consuming constant doses of cocaine. A few hundred years of detox and we would be back on track

I basically feel eventually all things would become meaningless to us. We would be beings that have lived for eons and seen universes live, die and be born again. Assuming we arent entirely insane by then( tho I think even insanity would get boring and we'd probably turn sane again)at that point what's left to us? I think we would have to just enter an eternal rest somehow. Just so we dont live anymore because we wpuldnt want to. Or we would make it so we forget out life and start again fresh(yes I know this contradicts what I said about brains maybe overloading on memories because memories arent truly forgotten but still)

I just dont think the human mind is made to handle eternity. I dont think any mortal mind would be.

 

[xluferx]

There soooo many reasons why inmortality is a curse the problem is that writers completely ignore the curse part

 

[Alkareel]

I had this weird idea.


What 'bout "Being horni"?

Isn't this the curse many people here have?
Curse of immorality?

 

[NotaNuffian]

Immortality is just an object/ wish-fulfiment and oftentimes it is just pointlessly fun to think about its implication when most if not all of us here has access to it. To hell, some of us here can't even access to basic healthcare without a huge debt being incurred.

Anyway, back to story, immortality can be a blessing if you are doing something worthwhile (something most of us here don't do) like maybe becoming the designated guy to reinvigorate or restart humanity when shit goes sideways or basically becoming the babysitter of humanity. Most of the times great power attracts great challenges and people are very willing to try and kill the immortal-you just for lulz.

If you don't have a great passion in living, then the power sucks.

 

[AliceShiki]

90% of people would not mind killing innocent child if it didn't lead to any consequences and let them have a new iPhone.

This is false. Absolutely false. The vast majority of people could never bring themselves to kill anyone, especially a child.

As for the curse part of immortality... I think it depends in part on how many bonds you have?

Like, if you live alone, don't have friends, cut ties with your parents and stuff, I think immortality might be enjoyable to you for quite some time. Probably not forever, but still for quite a while.

Humans tend to seek bond though. We tend to like getting closer to others and having them become a special part of our lives... I can't imagine immortality being anything other than a curse when taking this in mind.

I'll probably see my parents die, most people do... But I don't wanna see my boyfriend die. I don't wanna see my future children die, nor my future grandchildren, or great grandchildren... And so on.

Everyone I love would die... I can't imagine finding happiness like that. I can't imagine being able to enjoy making bonds after seeing enough of them being torn by the passage of time.

That is absolutely a curse. Immortality would be hell for most.

 

[sereminar]

We're thinking far far too short term with this immortality jazz. If you had immortality that could stop death by physical trauma, as well as stop aging you're going to outlive life on earth. And if people haven't figured out a way to other planets you'll be stuck on a dead rock orbiting a dead star while watching every star in the night sky slowly wink out. Alone to witness the cold death of the universe. Thus 99.9999999999% of your life you'd be truly alone. Unable to kill yourself to end your solitary confinement.

So yeah, it might be cool for a few hundred thousand years, maybe even a couple million, or billion. But eventually all the stars in the universe will die and there will be nothing left alive to keep you company for the next infinity. The curse begins when you want off the ride but can't find an exit.

 

[Reisinling]

This is false. Absolutely false. The vast majority of people could never bring themselves to kill anyone, especially a child.

As for the curse part of immortality... I think it depends in part on how many bonds you have?

Like, if you live alone, don't have friends, cut ties with your parents and stuff, I think immortality might be enjoyable to you for quite some time. Probably not forever, but still for quite a while.

Humans tend to seek bond though. We tend to like getting closer to others and having them become a special part of our lives... I can't imagine immortality being anything other than a curse when taking this in mind.

I'll probably see my parents die, most people do... But I don't wanna see my boyfriend die. I don't wanna see my future children die, nor my future grandchildren, or great grandchildren... And so on.

Everyone I love would die... I can't imagine finding happiness like that. I can't imagine being able to enjoy making bonds after seeing enough of them being torn by the passage of time.

That is absolutely a curse. Immortality would be hell for most.

I'm not sold on that. Many, many people experience their loved ones dying, and most.. well just deal with it. They live with the memory, but create new families, move on. Time heals all wounds, and immortals have a lot of time.

Also note that the only bonds you describe are familial ones, once again, I believe it is something you would learn to live with. Not all people, certainly, look at writings from people from before the age of modern medicine, so common was death most had multiple friends who died by 30 due to some disease or whatever.

I'm not going to argue the killing point, because that one is a matter of our belief about humanity. Though I suspect even you could agree, that someone that was born hundreds of years ago, if not thousands, would quite likely have different view on that then we do.

Maybe I read too many works about how easily humans are made to kill others (though supposedly Zimbardos research on the subject are.. disputed, we still have Miligram, according to whom the majority of people would do that if a man in a lab coat would tell them to)

 

[ThrillingHuman]

(I think people of this thread didn't read the og's post.)
Speaking of the opinion in the post, that is something I can agree on. There were so many instances when I read a book where a character got something "bad but good", but it was just good.
I try to avoid doing this, or I put some visible limitations where I want to put an "equivalent exchange curse".
You can think as fast as a supercomputer on drugs? You fall into a coma, and have a period of depression later.
You have infinite mana? You have a body weaker than a toddler and you can't run a hundred meters without feeling on the verge of death.
You have a buff that will let you cat down all foes with ease? You'll be on the verge of death after using it.

Am I the only one who wants all humans to be able to live up to 200 years old?

Humans overpopulated with how long they already live and create souch waste, they drown in it. You want to put that on hard mode?

 

[Reisinling]

Yeah bud but you arent thinking of this in terms of literal eons. You want to laze around? Fine, but you wont do that all thentine. Let alone hundreds of years. You would wanna move eventually. But even then, after eons, what's the point? Nothing would interest you. As for creating, how long until you get bored of that too? Because you will. It's just an inevitability. If I get bored of shit NOW, do you think I wouldnt get sick of something i have been doing for literal millennia?

We're thinking far far too short term with this immortality jazz. If you had immortality that could stop death by physical trauma, as well as stop aging you're going to outlive life on earth. And if people haven't figured out a way to other planets you'll be stuck on a dead rock orbiting a dead star while watching every star in the night sky slowly wink out. Alone to witness the cold death of the universe. Thus 99.9999999999% of your life you'd be truly alone. Unable to kill yourself to end your solitary confinement.

So yeah, it might be cool for a few hundred thousand years, maybe even a couple million, or billion. But eventually all the stars in the universe will die and there will be nothing left alive to keep you company for the next infinity. The curse begins when you want off the ride but can't find an exit.

I think that's the disconnect between me and many posters here, I think that the end result of immortality in our world, as imagined by most, would not be you being alive, but de-facto dead in space, as constantly disappearing and regenerating blob of atoms, never able to completely heal, meaning its more of a "near-immortality" I guess. If you did get to keep your consciousness, and was a floating mind, eternally sentenced to be a ghost in nothingness after the end of the universe then yeah, it would suck. Unless you get to just fall into sleepless dream of some sorts, or you learn to do so. Like vampires slumber.

Or in other words- there are hundreds of ways of permanently, or near permanently debilitating yourself, so even if you are immortal, you are not ever-conscious.

 

[ThrillingHuman]

Humans tend to seek bond though. We tend to like getting closer to others and having them become a special part of our lives... I can't imagine immortality being anything other than a curse when taking this in mind.

You are underestimating the ability of a person to adapt

 

[CupcakeNinja]

You are underestimating the ability of a person to adapt

Yeah they would adapt. They would adapt into apathy.

 

[ThrillingHuman]

Yeah they would adapt. They would adapt into apathy.

Apathy is also a way of life. A legitimately reasonable way of life too, mind you

 

[Deleted member 45782]

I think besides losing your loved ones and watching your kids and grandkids grow and their descendants til they are basically just strangers...

Its also leads to insanity. In a peaceful world or a not so turbulent world you can go travel and explore many places, learn many different cultures and things about the world and perhaps even beyond.

But humanity may shatter you. You may feel you wanna help but constant wars and as time goes on things bleed together. Victims today become villains over time. And the cycle repeats. Constant wars constant struggles, seeing humanity repeat itself in endless cycles and many humans suffering all the time and you can't do anything to help save em all. Perhaps you have tried to play god and to act as a saviour and protector but people and society eventually rise and deteroiate leaving you to wonder why still bother helping. Maybe someone with immortality throughout all these years may grow apathetic to human life and at worst perhaps turns insane because they start to believe humans are filth that always ravage the land and can't be redeemed from seeing how they constantly destroy themselves and others periodically and want to take humans out - thus they become insane and want to wipe everyone out. Maybe they just want end this curse - they can lice on while watching others suffer in repeated cycles around them and theres nothing they can do. So psychological aspect.

Maybe the loneliness bc with immortality probably only one or few has it, meaning you're stuck while time moves on and people move on and you don't really have anyone that you can associate with a sense of common or similar stuff since society and people change over time which is very different from how you came to be before you became cursed with immortality.

Some thoughts of if seeing immortality as a curse. Also what if cursed with immortality but with some conditions? For example, cursed with immortality but anytime you step out into the sunlight, the sun burns your eyes and ears and its so painful you could only stay in darkforever? Or perhaps immortality but you shall always crawl only to move around and only in dark, or immortality but always in constant pain?

Perhaps some with immortality may not grow twisted because it empowers them to continue living and exploring with endless possibilities that one might not fit it all within an average human lifetime, but then again seeing loved ones pass them by and countless devastation by people and suffering may also twist someone who has cursed with immortality.

Oh and past and present governments trying to hunt you down. Maybe the past governments will label you as some sort of demon or witch to be hunted down so you cant safely lice with other folk. In modern era maybe government want to hunt you down bc of your immortality curse and use you as a weapon or some sort of experiment.

Many interesting dark topics to lokk at if see immortality as a curse.

On bright side, become a great historian and librarian collecting all historical artifacts and recording them, endless opportunities, never have to worry about time is precious bc you got all time in the world. But perhaps loneliness is also something too.

 

[Ai-chan]

One of the most common tropes in fiction- the "curse" of immortality. Or "curse" of amazing strength, or "curse" of being great, and living fulfilling life while practicing your passion (usually killing)

Why the hell do any authors even pretend its a curse? I mean okay, there were instances of immortality being a curse - if its not paired with not-aging, but usually its a hunk/hunkess that says that, with pretty much no drawbacks, maybe some ocasionall innocent blood, but listen- 90% of people would not mind killing innocent child if it didn't lead to any consequences and let them have a new iPhone.

So, any opinions? I'm asking, as I was talking with my other cursed friends, as I was complaining about my huge pp curse, and how terrible it is, they claimed their immortality was worse. Posers.

Also, TV tropes for similar:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhoWantsToLiveForever https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CursedWithAwesome

The curse of immortality affects mostly the person's sentiments and emotions.

If you are immortal and nothing can kill you, you can live a free and fearless life, right? But that gets old very quickly. All you need to travel around the world on a sailing yacht is 2 months, more or less. Then maybe you visit every inch of the land, which takes you 100 years. What then? You've already explored everything, and you've already mastered every hobby within that 100 years. Maybe you can do it again for another 100 years, but you've already seen the sights and since you've already mastered every hobby within that first 100 years, there's nothing more to do other than interacting with new people. But even interacting with new people gets old because humans have the tendency to copy each other so you'd be interacting mostly with people who are more or less similar to each other.

Maybe you'd like to collect and master every knowledge that exist in the world? Let's say that you do get the chance to do that, which couldn't have taken more than 1000 years. So now you have spent 1200 years and two months. What do you do with the other 5,000 or 10,000, or 100,000 years?

Then there's also the pain of watching your loved ones die one after another. This leads to you not wanting to form bonds with people, leaving you with a sterile feeling. With every person you love dying, the deader you feel inside. For a normal person, this is a scar that never really recovers. The only saving grace is that you know death is the fate of everyone, including you and you believe that if you live life fully, you can one day meet them again and tell them everything you've experienced after their passing. For an immortal, this doesn't happen, because there is no relief called death.

Besides, think about the memories. Over time, your memories get buried as you pile on new memories. Consider living so long that you can't remember the face or name or the touch of your own mother, sister, wife or children. Just knowing that you once had it, but you can't remember it at all will break you. Ai-chan remember how Ai-chan had a dream about that. Ai-chan dreamt that Ai-chan lived for so long that no matter how much Ai-chan tried to recall, Ai-chan couldn't remember mom's face or her voice, Ai-chan only knows that mama used to exist. Ai-chan screamed into the universe in that dream and woke up screaming and crying.

You have no idea how relieved Ai-chan was to see mama's face and that it was all a dream. Ai-chan still cries to that dream as Ai-chan writes this. Because of that, if Ai-chan is offered immortality, Ai-chan would refuse it. If immortality is forced on Ai-chan, suicide is most definitely in Ai-chan's future.

 

[Reisinling]

Besides, think about the memories. Over time, your memories get buried as you pile on new memories. Consider living so long that you can't remember the face or name or the touch of your own mother, sister, wife or children. Just knowing that you once had it, but you can't remember it at all will break you. Ai-chan remember how Ai-chan had a dream about that. Ai-chan dreamt that Ai-chan lived for so long that no matter how much Ai-chan tried to recall, Ai-chan couldn't remember mom's face or her voice, Ai-chan only knows that mama used to exist. Ai-chan screamed into the universe in that dream and woke up screaming and crying.

You have no idea how relieved Ai-chan was to see mama's face and that it was all a dream. Ai-chan still cries to that dream as Ai-chan writes this. Because of that, if Ai-chan is offered immortality, Ai-chan would refuse it. If immortality is forced on Ai-chan, suicide is most definitely in Ai-chan's future.

I guess that's the difference in beliefs about reality. I agree immortality could suck, I also had dreams of being locked up somewhere and tortured after getting one, or being buried alive. But, assuming it was immortality where you always had a way out (though it might take time) it would be nice. Mostly because there always is something new you can learn/discover, how many things there are you could plan if they take hundreds of thousands of years.

Yes, many things would be lost, but how many things would become possible suddenly! Like seeing continents move, and join again, stars change, you can by yourself plant a forest, change the world in ways no one else ever could.

It just seems to me, that as people we get used to loss of other people easier than we like to admit. The fact you would loose some memories to me seems like it would be more of a blessing than a curse, but then I see how one can think otherwise.

All in all, we will never know which one of us was right.

 

[Ai-chan]

I guess that's the difference in beliefs about reality. I agree immortality could suck, I also had dreams of being locked up somewhere and tortured after getting one, or being buried alive. But, assuming it was immortality where you always had a way out (though it might take time) it would be nice. Mostly because there always is something new you can learn/discover, how many things there are you could plan if they take hundreds of thousands of years.

Yes, many things would be lost, but how many things would become possible suddenly! Like seeing continents move, and join again, stars change, you can by yourself plant a forest, change the world in ways no one else ever could.

It just seems to me, that as people we get used to loss of other people easier than we like to admit. The fact you would loose some memories to me seems like it would be more of a blessing than a curse, but then I see how one can think otherwise.

All in all, we will never know which one of us was right.

Well it's a personal opinion and not a fact. There is no right or wrong when it comes to opinions. This is just one of those times when people should respect each other's point of view and agree to disagree when faced with differing opinions.

Like that time when Ai-chan had a dream about being the commander of an alien military in charge of protecting civilians and buying time for their last fortress to be completed. Ai-chan chose to destroy the teleporter device to prevent the enemy from finding out the location of the final stronghold and thus stranding the remaining soldiers and subjecting them to fight or death situation. Some people disagreed with Ai-chan's decision, while there are some who defended Ai-chan's decision to hold the line despite the sure annihilation of the unit.