Humans are on a never ending chase for immortality

February 2023

Humans are on a never ending chase for immortality.

Why else would we innovate?

The issue isn't that we don't have enough food, shelter, water, etc.

The world has what it has.

The issue is that we have too many people.

We continue to reproduce because that's what organisms do. They reproduce to starve off anhilation.

The issue is that humans have gotten so good at staving off death that we have reproduced so much that our balance with Earth has been thrown off. In simpler words, there are now so many of us that we have to find clever ways to continue surving. It's not longer enough to pick a berry from a bush or shoot a deer and eat it. We have to create massive, complex supply chains to feed cities of millions.

Humans, as a species, will continue this fight until we reach immortatily or until the universe is no long capable of sustaining.

Stretch that thought further - humans could become interplanetary and still the sun will eventually stop generating heat. We will need to find a solution to that problem. We will attempt to move on to the next galaxy. And so on.

Either we figure out every problem, every time it arises or we eventually lose that battle.

After thought

Buddhism feels like an acceptance of this fact. A resignation to the fact that death of the species (and all species) is imminent. It does not try to fight it; it accepts it. And through that, it finds contentment.