But who wants to live forever on this planet?

Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

I want to laugh at it, say it can't be, dismiss it as science fiction. For that's all it is right now.

Eternal life here on Earth? Impossible. Impractical.

Absolutely intolerable.

And yet there is some truth in this fiction. Life magazine explores this truth in "The War on Aging," an interesting blend of writing and research and prophesy and speculation.

"How long CAN human beings live?" is the question Life poses.

And the answer it gives is forever.

"How long is forever?" Janet Butler and I asked Father Finn a million years ago.

"Forever is so long you could never comprehend it," he told us. "Imagine the sky just going on and on and on and never coming to an end."

Janet and I sat on my front porch staring at the sky, trying to picture forever. We knew that one day we would live with God forever, but our brains couldn't grasp this. They balked at exploring forever's endlessness.

"I don't want to live forever, not even in Heaven, not even with God," Janet said. Neither did I. Forever was something we didn't want to think about. We went inside and played jacks instead.

Now, 35 years later, forever is imminent, not just celestial forever but forever here on Earth.

"In the Roman Empire, people on average lived only 22 years," writes Brad Darrach in the October issue of Life. "In 1850, the average American died at 45. By 1900 the number had crept up to 48.

"Then the survival curve shot up. The average age at which Americans now die is 75."

People are living longer every year.

"It's possible that some people alive now may still be alive 400 years from now," predicts Dr. Michael Jazwinski, 45, a Louisiana State University Medical Center authority on aging in yeast. His peers on aging in rodents and roundworms enthusiastically agree. "As we learn to control the genes involved in aging, the possibilities of lengthening life appear practically unlimited," adds Dr. William Regelson, 67, professor of medicine at the Medical College of Virginia.

It seems that immortality is right around the corner.

Now depending upon your age and state of mind, immortality can be the best news you've ever heard. Or the worst. On the one hand, eternal life in the here and now will mean there'll be more time to smell the roses, and a lot more roses to smell, considering the number of folks who'll be planting them.

There'll be time to read all those books piled on the bedroom floor, time to study Spanish and French and Russian, learn the Texas Two Step, the Achy Breaky; time to watch all the videos you've recorded but have never seen; time to call old friends (excuse me, eternally young friends, because science will keep us from looking old, too) time to do the hundred million things we've always been meaning to do.

On the other hand living forever will mean there'll be no more "I don't have the time" excuses. We'll HAVE to do all the things we don't want to do. We'll have to floss forever and exercise forever and watch our diets forever and worry about all the things we worry about now - who's going to cut the grass, who's going to wash the car, who's going to drop the first nuclear bomb - forever.

We'll have to clean our houses - or abandon them - because the junk will take over. One hundred years, 1,000 years, 1 million years of Christmas cards and school papers from children, grandchildren, great-great-great-great-grandchildren. Where will we put all this stuff?

Whose house will we go to on holidays? Whose house will be big enough? And Halloween. Halloween will be ruined because how can you be original FOREVER?

Forever. On this planet. I don't want to think about it.

I'd rather play jacks. At least jacks have a beginning and an end.