If you really want to know something, look it up. It's not my job to educate you morons. Besides...I prefer that you remain stupid.

Jack

I find it very hard to conceptualize immortality (my grapes ain't sour, I can't even taste them). What exact bundle of immunities does it entail? Consider this. If I live for a million years, I'm sure to have a rattlesnake bite on my leg that will require amputation. Give me another million and someone's sure to chop off my arm for some kind of transgression. Decapitation is a done deal by the third million, so by then I am a brain floating in a jar of formaldehyde. You may want to insure against these calamities by packaging them in the immortality contract itself ("all parts and labor"). As Tolstoy would say, shit can happen in a zillion ways (decap insurance is no guarantee you won't have to walk around with an ax buried in your skull with accompanying migraines). You better get a Dream Team of lawyers to look over the thousands of pages of fine print. The limiting state of the immortal soul is either Bill Murray in Groundhog Day or the Cheshire cat, neither of which seems like an unmixed blessing. Other nasty surprises from probability theory (e.g. the gambler's ruin problem) are sure to raise their hydra-heads and will need to be resolved somehow. Ultimately, the strongest argument against eternal life is that it's too much paperwork.

Perhaps a slightly better option is voluntary death, like Bhishma had. The bugger, if you recall, lay on a bed of arrows for months, wrote a million goodbyes and threw a thousand farewell parties with unlimited booze and lapdancers (whose services he was unable to avail of, naturally), before he could finally bring himself to kick the bucket. Nah, I'm not sure I trust myself with the keys.

If I step on a black mamba one of these days, so be it.

You caught me. And I can think of some examples in which I would like access to the keys/off button. Your post reminded me of another X-Files episode, Je Souhaite; if you haven't seen it yet, I think you would enjoy it.
There are some parts in the Mahabharata that I found funny, including Bhishma's death, which easily puts The Who, Brett Farve, etc. to shame. (Another is Pandu's.) And speaking of snakes, some years back, I bought the first five books of the Mahabharata, excited to finally be reading it in a nonabridged version. I sit down with the first book, and all this snake stuff goes on for page after page after page...the poor listeners. Which reminds me of another X-Files: Scully: Mulder, have you ever seriously thought about death? Mulder: One, at the Ice Capades.

Empty babble (just like a dame). Meaning, forgot to tell you I really enjoyed Murder by Death.