In the little read Book III of Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Lemuel Gulliver finds himself on the island of Luggnagg, where there is a group of people called Struldbrugs who are "blessed" with eternal life. On hearing of Struldbrugs, Gulliver waxes ecstatic: "happiest, beyond all comparison, are those excellent STRULDBRUGS, who, being born exempt from that universal calamity of human nature, have their minds free and disengaged, without the weight and depression of spirits caused by the continual apprehensions of death!" Gulliver is soon disabused of his enthusiasm. He learns that after an allotted number of years have passed, the Struldbrugs are declared legally dead, but that they continue to grow older, feebler, and more wretched. It’s hard to know whether Swift points his satire at human optimism or whether he is simply repulsed by extreme old age.
In any case, we’ve been spending much time at the nursing home lately, visiting the Aged P (I’m using the euphemism adopted by John Wemmick in Great Expectations). Friends, you don’t have to voyage to Luggnagg to learn that it’s possible to live far too long; the evidence is close at hand. Let’s try to remember to get the heck out of here while the going’s good — before we too are metamorphosized into a bunch of Struldbrugs.
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