Will We Live to Old Age?

If we may never live to old age, what are we still so anxious about?

How are we supposed to live our lives? Whenever we ask this question, we seem to assume that we will reach a reasonably old age.

But to put it bluntly: how long we will live, what accidents we might meet, what quality of life awaits us—all of that is unknown.

Sometimes we grow too obsessed with fantasy, imagining a beautiful future for ourselves, but that is wishful thinking at best. The choices we make on the strength of that expectation often carry a baffling logic. We willingly spend the best years of our lives making ourselves miserable to keep pace with society—studying, marrying, raising children—and by the time we are old and worn, we no longer have the leisure to talk about ideals or freedom.

I call this future-worship. People who worship the future believe that everything in the present is tolerable; they allow themselves to be swept along by society and sell their bodies and souls. I have always found this contemptible. It is no different from selling sex for a living—except that everyone has gotten used to it, as though this society-approved path had some natural right to it. But there is no such right.

I resent it when people hear this and dismiss it as nihilism. That is an evasion. Push the conversation further, and they grow impatient: there is nothing to be done, everyone lives this way, rebel and you will not survive. These arguments are tedious, or rather irresponsible. Choose to be one of the crowd without thinking, and the suffering you endure is self-inflicted. I am not preaching monk-like detachment—only that we ought to think harder about many things. Reflect until there is nothing to regret: that is all.

The unexamined life is not worth living. I only hope we think while there is still time, before we sink any deeper.