What would you do if you could live forever: The Philosopher’s Stone

The Philosopher’s Stone (or the Sorcerer’s Stone for the Americans) helps you to live forever but what would you do with all that time?

We know quite about bit about Nicholas Flammel and his Philosopher’s Stone because of the Harry Potter series. But it brings up a good point. What would you do if you could live forever? For many of us, the idea of dying is terrifying. So we’d do whatever it takes to never have to deal with that possibility.

We’re going to look at what living forever would mean, what we would chose to do and why, in the end of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Nicholas decides it is time to stop using the stone to live forever.

What it means

Living forever means watching those you love grow old and die. It means living through countless wars but amazing change in the world. Living forever means that you’re constantly watching things change around you and you yourself may not change.

It’s a weird concept to think about. If you’re not changing then it’s super strange to live in a world that is. And for most, the idea seems lovely but the actuality of it isn’t great.

What you’d do

If I could live forever, it would be so much about living in the present and that’s a terrible thing to think about. Living in the present is so important for us all so to have that idea taken away from us means that we’re not living as fully as we should.

Eventually leaving

Nicholas even chose to not live forever in the end and for good reason. Living forever seems like a great idea but really, it’s not. Watching everyone you care about die isn’t something we want to see in this world.

Next: Shakespeare and Harry Potter: The talented actors we love

So what would happen if we all lived forever? We don’t know but at least we know we won’t be Nicholas Flammel about it.