Nickleback’s “Last Day” Describes Immortal Virtues Better Than Impending Doom
“If Today Was Your Last Day” offers better advice to an immortal than to someone who will die tomorrow. Here are some of the things in the song that would make more sense to do if you had thousands of years or longer rather than just one days left:
“Leave no stone unturned….try to take the path less traveled by…“
If you’re going to be around for a while, the cost of exploring new ideas, going new places, and trying new techniques is low — you can always go back to what you know works. On the other hand, let’s say you spend two hours of your last day on something that doesn’t work — you’ve just wasted over 8% of your remaining time.
“…Leave your fears behind…”
Possibly makes sense for fear of things that might result in death, possibly not, but let’s put that aside for now; if you’re immortal and you screw up in a non-fatal way, you have a lot of time to set things right socially, emotionally, physically, whatever. Suppose everyone thinks you’re worse than Hitler because of a faux pas. If you’re immortal, you can change their minds, or at the very least work on a new identity. For the last day scenario, you’re reputation is pretty much sealed; whatever you do that so terrible will be on the evening news, and you’re not going to have enough time to organize a press conference for a rebuttal. Non-lethal physical injuries are even worse — a broken leg will dramatically change the types of activities someone with lots of lifespan can do, but they have time to heal and can still have a full life in the meantime. Break a leg on your last day, and you’ll be in terrible pain for the rest of your life and not doing much of anything.
“…say goodbye to yesterday?“
I suspect immortals would definitely have to get a bit less starry-eyed about the past, simply because they’d have centuries of it after, well, a few centuries.
“Donate every dime you had…”
This one is tricky, but I think massive donations make much more sense if you’re going to live a long time rather than if you’re going to die in the very near future. If you’re going to die soon, it makes sense to try to get as much fun (utility?) out of the remaining time as possible, and it’d be easier to do that with a lot of money. No need to worry about what happens about anything you can’t spend as long as you have a halfway decent last will, which might even be something you could throw together with some online software and a couple friends in a pinch (NOT the right way to do things at all, this is something that shouldn’t be rushed, but I’m assuming someone with only 24 hours left is not going to spend hours talking to a lawyer, and people have gotten away with far more unusual things for wills) — you can still give gobs of money to charity. On the other hand, if you’re immortal and give all of your money to charity or someone random, it’s no big deal — wait a few years, and you’ll have plenty again, as long as you maintain some sort of reasonable income stream; if you don’t include illiquid assets that generate an income stream as “money,” this gets very, very trivial.
“And would you call those friends you never see? / Reminisce old memories?”
If I were going to go out in a day, no. The last thing I’d want to do in an “every second counts” situation like this is leisurely go over old stuff with kinda-friends. I’d much rather do new, fun stuff, as quickly as possible, with the friends I see most often. But if I had all the time in the world, sure. Friends are valuable, and improving a friendship has benefits into the future. The immortal has a future (the long now?) to consider — not so if it’s your last day.
“Would you forgive your enemies? …. Would you make your mark by mending a broken heart?”
Same thing as the friends. There’s a harm to having enemies and an unhappy ex or two or more into the future, but unless you think someone will try to sabotage your last day if you don’t reconcile with them, it doesn’t make much sense to waste time on them. That, and you might very well be depriving them of an after-funeral celebration if you call them and let them know all is forgiven.
“And would you find that one you’re dreaming of? ….fall in love if today was your last day?”
Relationships take time to build. You can bonk in 24 hours and maybe get dinner, go on a date, or role-play a deeper relationship; an actual lifetime romance takes… well, a lifetime.
“You know it’s never too late to shoot for the stars”
If you’re going to die in 24 hours, then, yes, it is too late to shoot for the stars. Writing a novel, building a skyscraper, founding a colony at sea, developing a new form of intelligence, or literally shooting for the stars in a rocket are all things that take time. Not a big problem for the extended lifespan, which is why we should support research toward life extension.
