Immortality.
There are some people who try to purchase it. Wealth helps provide a person with the best healthcare available, but there are limits. I recall a picture of Prince Philip, aged 99, being driven home in a car after leaving the hospital. Was he aware it would be his last ride home? Perhaps not. But it was — he was dead five days after the picture was taken.
There’s this billionaire named Bryan Johnson who has made it his life goal to turn back the clock, turn back time itself and reclaim his youth. The goal? Functional immortality. To this end, he goes through extreme and often bizarre lengths, such as blood transfusions from his own son to “rejuvenate his blood”. The man’s a genuine vampire…
Bryan Johnson is now 48, and he seems to be a healthy fellow. Will he make it to 99, the way Prince Philip did? Perhaps he will. Perhaps he’ll even make it in one piece. Or perhaps he’ll die twenty years younger, keeling over from a heart attack at 79 while still looking 45 and not seeing it coming at all… we don’t know. I don’t know, Bryan Johnson doesn’t know and neither did Prince Philip…
Money can buy you a pretty sweet life, and it can keep you alive longer than you might otherwise live, but there are limits to our biology that science has yet to overcome. Bryan Johnson claims to work on a blueprint to immortality. Perhaps he’ll succeed to ward off death longer than most. Or perhaps he’s just another modern-day alchemist looking for the fountain of eternal youth — Prince Philip seemed ready to meet the Grim Reaper like an old pal. One day, all of us will. And no amount of money can shield us from that inevitability.