We might delay, but cannot avoid death. Even if you had the Goblet of Gilgamesh, the actuaries would offer even money whether you'd survive your thousandth birthday. The world is just too full of drunk drivers and mutating viruses. You know this, of course, but I didn't. The only excuse I can offer is that fear of dying was clouding my reason.
When I was 46, I walked away from a career in computer science to go to med school. I wanted to learn the science of aging, and convinced myself there was a chanceI was not too proud to grasp at a threadthat the Breakthrough would come in time for me. I never imagined making the discovery myself, but hoped I might be close enough to the field to secure a place near the head of the queue when human trials became available.
I was lucky. Aging, it turns out, is epigenetic. It's all about gene expression, and Big Data yielded to Bigger Database. I'm 69 years old, and I have in hand a vial with a transcription factor that will set my body's clock back 40 years.
The grey fog of fear has lifted, and I can think about death for the first time. I can read about children's past lives, mediumship, and NDEs. I can plan. A thousand years feels, at once, too long to occupy one body, and completely beside the point. When I'm 900 years young, will I still be able to learn? Will I still dread the looming Void?
A faint glimpse into the obvious. The best gift of that vial is already mine. All I really wanted was a view of life outside the fog, and this I have been given.
JJM
