Inspired by Maurice

Recently I watched an episode of Northern Exposure in which Maurice’s brother dies, and he begins to worry about who will become heir to the Minnifield empire. He tries having Chris as his new ‘son’, but it doesn’t work out. Later in the episode, he has a conversation with Joel that really stuck in my mind:

MAURICE: The Minnifield empire will not bear fruit in one man's lifetime.
JOEL: Yeah. I heard it didn't work out with you and Chris.
MAURICE: Yeah.
JOEL: I'm sorry. You know, maybe you can start a trust. The Minnifield foundation. It worked for the Rockefellers and the Gettys.
MAURICE: No. I've come up with something else, Joel.
JOEL: Really, what's that?
MAURICE (deadly serious) : I've decided to live forever.

I was thinking about this last night and it struck me that Maurice might be on to something. Like Maurice, I could protect my empire simply by living forever. Ok, so I don’t have an empire yet – but when I do, it will need protecting, and eternal life seems the easiest way to go about this.

Let me tell you why this is going to work.

Firstly, it’s a well documented fact that I am inherently lazy. I don’t exercise unless forced to for some reason. The most amount of voluntary exercise I like to do is to walk from my car to my office and back again. While this might seem like a lifestyle choice, I maintain that it is, in fact, my body’s innate nature. In fact, it’s entirely possible that my body is so lazy that it will never develop a deadly illness, never be bothered to age, never muster up enough energy to cause me to do any of the things that lead to a body’s death. So as long as I don’t get hit by a bus, I should be fine.

Secondly, I eat a lot of foods with preservatives in them. Surely this can only help to stem the flow of old age and prevent my body from decaying. If it doesn’t work quite like that, at the very least I’ll be the best preserved corpse around.

Thirdly...ok, so I can’t think of a third reason why. But no one said that explaining immortality was easy, so I guess two will have to be enough. Now all I need is my empire and I’ll be set. Although if I can’t manage to come up with an empire I guess I’ll just have to settle for living to a normal age like everyone else.