Morbid Musings

This story blows my mind, so I thought I’d share it with you all. I found it on The Hairpin, who linked to the AP’s original story.

The world’s oldest man died yesterday. Walter Breuning was 114 years old. (Strange irony: The world’s oldest person is a woman who was born about a month before him.)

Walter lived through the turn of two centuries. How many people in the world can truthfully say the same? I’m the type who’s entertained by the thought that my parents didn’t have color TV when they were little, that my grandparents grew up listening to the radio for entertainment. This man lived the first years of his life without electricity. He saw the invention of nearly every modern convenience we know and take for granted.

He left a few pearls of advice for the rest of us. The AP included several in the story, but the one that really sticks with me is to accept death.

“We’re going to die. Some people are scared of dying. Never be afraid to die. Because you’re born to die,” he said. Morbid as this statement is, it is also completely honest. From the very second you’re born, you start the long journey toward death.

Then, I think of another site I recently found via a friend. It attempts to predict the future of man, how humans as a species will evolve. Predictions are based on current research, not science fiction. And the site predicts that man may one day achieve a sort of immortality. And I can’t help but wonder…would I even want that? Would anyone?