There’s a big problem with immortality: it goes on and on | Aeon Essays

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The fantasy of living forever is just a fig leaf for the fear of death – and comes at great personal cost

The finale of Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) sees the quest for the Holy Grail reach a dramatic conclusion. The film’s villain – the Nazi collaborator and artifact hunter Walter Donovan – knows that drinking from the sacred goblet will bring him eternal life. But from a table laid out with many false grails, he foolishly picks the most glittering cup of all. Donovan drinks his fill, but rather than receiving the gift of eternal life, he rapidly starts to age: his skin peels off, his hair falls out, and he turns into a skeleton that collapses into dust. As the…

There’s a big problem with immortality: it goes on and on | Aeon Essays

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