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PROMPT: Long Life

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Daily writing prompt
What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?
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Living a long life while physically and mentally capable = great. Living a long life when you need advanced technology to achieve it and you’re just lying around like a slug without the ability hold a simple conversation = the worst circle of hell I can fathom.

One of the few books I’d recommend for everyone is Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal” which shows that our great pride in increasing human life expectancy is not all it’s cracked up to be because the average quality of life at death has dropped in the process. Essentially, people are completing the marathon because we are dragging quasi-corpses over the finish line rather than allowing them to fail gracefully.

PROMPT: Longevity

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What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

As long as I’m of sound mind and capable body, I’m fine with it, but not at any cost. I’d rather shuffle off this mortal coil than drag out the suffering of immobility and / or dementia.

I think Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal” is good required reading. Among other things, he talks about the smoke and mirrors of our species’s increased lifespan. (i.e. increased lifespan, yes, but too often at the cost of diminished quality of life through those additional years.)