Do I want to celebrate my 200th birthday? No: I don’t think so.
I’m about to see my 77th anniversary of arrival on this earth, and thus far a mixed bag of good and bad times, illness and health, success and failure, amazement and boredom. In short: life, in all its shades from brilliant gold to desperate black. Could I face? Enjoy? Withstand? another 123 years of the process?
Again: I don’t think so. And what about the planet? Many, if not most of our current ecological and social ills are due to one factor and one factor alone: overcrowding. Our world is over-populated. Just imagine: if we had the ability to prolong life up to 200 years, and the current birth rate continued, we’d be one gigantic seething mass, living under terrible conditions, short of every natural resource and fighting for survival. Shades of the Bladerunner movie Pretty much how many live today in Third World countries.
Currently on my local radio station there’s an ad confidently announcing that the people who will live up to 200 years have already been born, and what are the listeners doing to adjust their financial planning accordingly? Good question. And only one of the many questions that the scenario generates. Prudent financial planning will be the least of our worries when the Two-Hundreds start multiplying. Our needs will be a great deal more basic. Food. Water. Shelter. Survival.
Just maybe that sonorous phrase to live three-score years and ten was excellent advice.
despatchesfromtimbuktu 
It’s a shame how the earth’s resources are being wasted and abused. While I think that a very long life , means getting very very old, and I am not a fan of that, I am sure some people would jump at the chance.
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Two hundred years is now the new hundred.
My grandmother lived until she was 96. My mother-in-law died 9 days before she turned 100 – and Mary Atlas, a wonderful old friend, passed away last year at the age of 104.
Better have another look at your financial situation, Alison – and start planning ahead: you never know …..
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wise advice – thanks
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Well maybe not 200yrs but perhaps when the mind goes the body should follow?
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Quite. Why is it considered such a great achievement to live longer than everyone else, I wonder.
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Good question!
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Well! You’ve certainly given us something to ponder.
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