Only narcissists want to be immortal

Telegraph

24-03-2025

Ever since I sobbed my way through the children's classic Tuck Everlasting, a novel about the loneliness of a virtuous rural American family that accidentally drank from a spring of eternal life in the late 19th century, I have found the idea of immorality as sad as it is enticing.
If living forever still seems a bit over the top, dying in the way that most of us do feels terrifying. Life would be infinitely happier if illness and suffering were eradicated, and death was something that only happened when one was truly ready.
Unfortunately, it's the crude and narcissistic Silicon Valley types who are making the most noise when it comes to the quest for longevity. And these are, quite frankly, the last people that one would want living forever.
The figurehead of this sinister crew is the 47-year-old tech millionaire Bryan Johnson. He is known for his obsessive approach to reverse ageing, from injecting the blood plasma of his 19-year-old son to putting on goggles two hours before bed every night to block out blue light.
His fitness and diet regimen are the stuff of nightmares to ordinary couch potatoes, and he has his own line of supplements that are meant to help turn back the clock. The extremity of his approach is the subject of a Netflix documentary called Don't Die, and Johnson, a former Mormon missionary, has declared that he is founding a religion of the same name.
The weirdest thing about Johnson is that, for all his efforts, he doesn't look a day under his age – and very possibly, with his sleep-deprived eyes and sickly-looking skin, he looks quite a bit over it.
At any rate, the much-publicised egomania of Johnson is taking a more litigious turn. Johnson, who has for over a decade tightly controlled his image with extensive NDAs, began using ever lengthier legal forms and agreements to control what people said about him after he founded his longevity company, Blueprint, in 2021.
The New York Times has recently published allegations that in one document staff had to accept that their boss could choose to wear little and sometimes 'no clothing/no underwear'; that there could be 'discussions of sexual activities' in the workplace; and they had to agree in advance that Johnson's behaviour was not 'unwelcome, offensive, humiliating, hostile, triggering, unprofessional or abusive'.
Johnson has also come under fire for a line of supplements. Paid $2100 to try out something called the Longevity Mix, some participants experienced nausea, bloating and lower testosterone levels.
'A lot of comments about hating this as it is making them sick, vomit, have heartburn' wrote one person trying the mix. If that's the path to immortality, then no thank you.
Of course Johnson has dismissed the New York Times article as a 'hit job', and doubled down on his particularly bizarre form of arrogance, chest-beating on X to his half-million followers that: 'The New York Times tried to come for me and missed' and insisting 'our reputation is our most precious asset…We work on it every second of every day'.