These ideas were not as useful to people worldwide before modern medicine and technology because eventually some part of their body wore out that they needed to live on. This won't be true regarding ANY part of humans soon, likely this century.
With this comes the possibility of actual physical immortality. Many people will not choose to take that opportunity because they aren't intelligent enough. If you are one of those rich enough here on earth to decide to be temporarily or permanently Immortal in a human or human like body this will be interesting for you to read, hopefully.
As one moves through life from birth there are many challenges both physical and psychological.
If one survives all the internal and external onslaughts both of design and accident within and outside themselves they often marry and have children. If they are suited to be parents psychologically, physically and spiritually and have a way to financially support those children so they grow up reasonably well, then they have no reason to kill themselves for not taking better care of their spouse and children. These are the most likely people to become immortal. They will live on because their children love and care about them, they have friends and hopefully their spouse is still alive.
The next hurdle might be one one's spouse of a long time passes away. However, if that person has been married more than once, that person likely has learned how to think right to re-start dating after their spouse dies after a reasonable time.
For example, we encouraged my wife's stepfather to date again after my wife's mother passed away at 75. He is still alive now at 96 as a result of dating. Though he is slipping mentally now he met and lived with a lovely lady from England who passed away last summer which greatly increased his lifespan. However, he does have a brother that is now 100.
When he was 82 he flew me down to Big Sur and over it in his Beechcraft V Tail plane and scared me half to death landing at the airport because I didn't realize how strong the wings are on this plane compared to the high wing planes I mostly had been piloting when he suddenly dropped 5000 feet and I thought we were going to crash. He was just trying to impress me what a good pilot and how strong his plane was. After dropping 5000 feet he just lifted the nose and landed the plane in a perfect 3 point landing. I was pretty impressed.
But, the point of all this is people are starting more and more to live passed 100 and they will continue to.
Many or most of them are successful people who learned both how to make friends, be successful in business, and how to have fun. The man I'm talking about (my wife's stepfather) graduated Stanford in the late 1930s before World War II and became a well known California CPA(Accountant). Though he might make it to 100 too like his brother is now I think losing his life partner after losing both his first two wives is a bit much psychologically to process in one's 90s even if they have all their marbles like he did. His kids are all there for him but he is still 96 trying to deal with all this.
However, if you live to grow up, if you get married or don't, if you have kids or don't, basically whatever living strategy you come up with you may find yourself one day retired like me. And in it's own way it is the most different thing you have to do in life. I suppose if I were to describe it to you in what it is really like it would be like being 10 to 20 years old on summer vacation. How many years of that could you survive without going crazy. At first it is wonderful but then, it goes on forever without letup. So, if you don't have any disciplines to keep you focused, like having to go to the market to buy food, paying your bills, meeting with friends and doing things together etc. etc. etc.
it can be a bit much to deal with day after day after day after day.
I'm very lucky now because my wife and I are well enough off to be able to take ourselves and sometimes our children to Hawaii or Europe periodically (if they have time away from their college or careers). So, about every year or so we have gone to England and Scotland, or Paris and we have been twice to Hawaii now within about 2 years. (The last time was 2 weeks ago for 10 days). We took my two daughters and one of their boyfriends who is now about 29 I believe. He was able to get time away from his job to do this which was great. He got interested in Surfing in Hawaii and took lessons and then rented a board and went out surfing on his own and now plans to surf near Portland Oregon where he lives with my daughter who is now about 25. He is a very coordinated and personable guy who when he grew up in Colorado could jump his snowboard 60 feet into the air. So, he is very outdoorsy like my daughter he lives with and myself. I grew up skiing and then eventually skiing while my daughter snowboarded. She's pretty good and he's an expert at snowboarding. So, they snowboard together still. I bought them a pass last year for the spring season at Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood so they could snowboard together there.
So, I would describe the basic strategy for Immortality psychologically (very important) goes something like this.
"One lives on into immortality to take care of one's children, to help one's friends, to be of help whenever possible to the human race in any way you can to prevent their extinction, and to help life on earth evolve and grow and if possible colonize other worlds. In other words you become an elder working to benefit the whole human race. This gives a person enough reason to go on living as long as they have all their mental and physical faculties. It allows a person time to pray and meditate (if that is their wish). It allows a person to become more and more enlightened and happy and peaceful as they live longer and longer and longer on this planet or others as the human race moves out into space to other planets and dimensions."
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