Why I don't want to live forever

Matt Groening once penned a Life in Hell strip that involved a father telling his child what happens when you die. The father means to be reassuring, but in the last frame, the kid is lying wide awake and terrified.

That happens to me every now and then, that moment of terror in the night when you realize I AM GOING TO DIE AND NOTHING WILL CHANGE THAT FACT. Now that I'm older, it ironically happens less often. But when it does, it's usually combined with images from the Science Channel about the universe imploding into itself and black holes and other Really Big Things that just make my head explode. Then I have to reduce my focus to my own trivial little existence, lest I go mad.

One of the kindnesses that happens to us as we get older, and as the world goes ever more to shit, is that mortality no longer seems quite as terrible. It's still terrible, but you get the sense that you don't want to be around to see what's coming.

And if this is our future, I don't want to hang around forever: