Therein lies the omitted problem: it's mostly You. And that, no matter what you walk or run from, you can't escape. Ever. Not even death, in my opinion, allows you to do that. The game reset starts over but with those same challenges, though the You you were might look very different to the You you were before, but then you won't remember that, unless the walls between these worlds have crumbled, but then what would be the point in returning in a different guise?
To live forever would have drawbacks, don't you think? Imagine: the boredom of being the same person! I'm bored with me now! and at the very least I have another 30 years if I avoid freak accidents and health complications. Some of you, I guess, might welcome eternal life if you cling to the person you are currently. However it still seems a bit advanced, scientifically and spiritually, if you ask me. And there still might be the loss of youth and vitality because progress in these areas is piecemeal. Ha! is what I want to say to those who want to age but don't want to age if you know what I mean. The internal workings might be in better order but your outward appearance might still alter. Slowed down, marginally. With more time, things will still slip and slide. Eventually.
Make your choice: good health and cognitive function or beauty. Is that choice really so hard? Maybe it is for aesthetically-pleasing people? Then, perhaps you've made yourself into one of those sculpted beauties; everything that could be done has been done. If that's the case, I don't know what to say for I have no idea, nor does science, how these make-over procedures will age. Again, time, and rather more of it, will tell those tales and trot them out for the world to see either as pin-ups or horror stories.
Man, (as in human rather than getting ourselves in a tangle over stereotypical behaviour or gender identification), likes to tinker. Think: evenings and weekends spent under the bonnet of a car or repairing some appliance so that's it's as good as new or even better. We like to improve things, be it our cars, homes or our bodies, and yet we don't seem to know when to stop. When instead of making the best of whatever we've got, we end up papering over the already re-papered cracks. When it comes to our ageing bodies some of us go to extremes, even trying too hard to make it look like they're not when they have, they are. Everything, at the end of the day, is a temporary fix, even if you've taken drastic measures to get there. As in, if you adhere to my belief, we're all going to die someday, though you can die and still be living.
Huh? Oh yes, we all experience 'little deaths': changing schools and jobs, moving house, leaving childhood to enter adolescence, then transitioning from that to adulthood, dealing with blossoming and fading looks, and illnesses that might bring physical and emotional changes, throughout our lifetimes. What do they indicate? The end of a significant period. Period.
Oh, why can't we work through, deal with these losses? Embrace it, rather than actively prevent or fight against it. No, I don't know the answer, because I've had my own struggles, but I do know that the dilemmas we often concoct are psychological. And the weight we give to them is damaging, and not just superficially either.
Wouldn't it be easier if we could just tinker with our lives, as writers do with plots, so that we wouldn't have the stress of the (perceived) consequences of doing something or other or the logistical nightmares? View it without having to actually live it instead of taking irreversible action that we later regret or cry over. God, however, in his infinite wisdom would probably say: Play children, play.
Picture credit: The Luncheon of the Boating Party, Pierre Auguste Renoir
