Why don’t humans live longer than 100 years?

I know the title isn’t as technical as it should be but at least it sounds better than why don’t humans live longer than 70-85 years. Or does it? Just like all other forms of life on planet Earth, humans are a form of life. They exist, thrive, and for some arbitrary reason, they have huge control over the trajectory of life on Earth as a whole. Everywhere you go, you’ll see proof of humans existing on Earth. It’s inevitable. You just cannot avoid them. Sometimes, personally, I hate it. But it’s the reason we all exist and survive so I don’t mind.

I was going to college that day and I was wondering why humans live only as long as they do. Consider it to be 100 or 75 doesn’t matter. Dogs live 10-13 years, Cats live 17-18 years, they live a very short lifespan. But, that doesn’t mean they don’t get to go from being a child to being a teen, to an adult, a parent, a grandparent, and go through other phases of life like us. They do, they become adults, they reproduce, they give birth, and they follow the same phases of life humans do. So, why the shorter amount of time?

Why don't we live a shorter lifespan?

What if humans could live only 18 years? Well, in that case, we would change our calendars to make ourselves believe we live a larger number of years but the time would be the same, wouldn’t it? All life would be crumpled down to a span of 18 years as we experience them now. Maybe humans would never get into this race of constant growth and progress. Maybe we would be just like dogs and cats. Struggle, enough for survival. Nothing more, nothing less. Maybe we would still be as smart as we are but that would be a rather boring possibility so I didn’t think about that. It’s so interesting that it took me a lot of time to stop thinking about it. Maybe we would grow faster. Imagine being an adult when you’re 4 or 5 years old! That’d be cool.

But then imagine you grow up at the same rate and everybody dies as soon as they’re adults. That’d be the best life and I know all of the people turning 18 agree with me on this one. Get cold before you get sold to the world’s struggles. Enjoy life till you’re 12 or 13, worry about nothing, make friends, watch TV, play video games, then struggle for a few years and just stop existing. But then, if you know you’re gonna die at 18, why’d you struggle for anything? You’d just keep doing what you are until everything works well. Maybe dogs have the same mentality, who knows? They’re like, “If you’re gonna die at 13, why do you wanna go to school and jobs and stuff? Just live life amigo!”. Probably not in English but you get the idea right? Maybe because we live longer, we’re smarter because you can’t make a living for 100 years every day. It’s just too much work.

Why don't we live a longer lifespan?

But, what if humans could live longer? What if we could live for a thousand years? How would life then be? Would we still struggle so much with our jobs and school? Or would we struggle at all? Would we put so much effort into living all the thousand years we’ve been given or just live till the day we die? Would we become adults when we’re 180 years old or would we stay adults for 800 years? How would the world be then is something that hasn’t left my mind since I thought about it.

Maybe in another universe, humans live a thousand years. Then maybe Christina Perri would’ve written, “I’ve loved you for a million years, I’ll love you for a million more” because, well, loving someone for a thousand would seem ordinary. Maybe we would have fun for a hundred years before we would start school. Maybe we’d be kids for hundreds of years and only grow up much much later. We’ll hit midlife crises at 500 years, go to school once every two weeks, go to offices once a week, and life would be slow. So, would we then progress at a faster rate than we have in normal circumstances or would it take longer? It’s all so confusing, yet so fascinating.

I’m always left with a million questions and a billion answers whenever I think about this but it always amazes me how stupidly amazing the game of life and probability is. What would be the chances that we live for a hundred years and not 500, 1000, 10000, and so on? Out of all the possibilities, we live a hundred years. And yet, Einstein somehow said God doesn’t play dice. Now, I don’t know how much that is relatable to this scenario but it just comes to my mind whenever I think about this topic. It’s stupid, it’s a waste of time, it’s mind-bending, and yet I do it.

My takeaway is always that humans will always look forward to seeing progress no matter how much longer or shorter they live. After all, humans have defined what time is and time is defining what humans do. It’s all interwoven in the fabric of life. Stretch it or compress it, and it will work the same. To me, time is the most confusing and fascinating thing I’ve ever come across. It always amazes me how we’ve defined what time is, and how it works, and yet when we mess around with it even a little bit, it makes everything seem out of place. It’s complex, yet so simple that everybody thinks they understand it. I’m probably not making any sense right now. But, yeah. That was what I was thinking about.