The Organ and the Emperor: On Immortality, Power, and the Price of a Human Life

 

The Organ and the Emperor: On Immortality, Power, and the Price of a Human Life

By Ivan Carlos Possamai

---

Prologue: The Whisper That Wasn’t Meant for Us

It was one of those moments history loves to hide in plain sight.

Two men — leaders of vast nations, architects of their own political immortality — strolling side by side in Beijing’s September sun. Cameras rolled, flags waved, soldiers marched in perfect synchrony. And then, a slip. A microphone, still live, caught words that were never meant for the public ear.

“With the development of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously transplanted and people can live younger and younger, and even achieve immortality,” said Vladimir Putin.

Xi Jinping replied, “Predictions are, this century, there is also a chance of living to 150.”

It was casual, almost playful. But the air around those words was heavy. Because when the powerful speak of immortality, they are rarely talking about poetry or legacy. They are talking about staying here — in the flesh — long after nature would have dismissed them.

And in that moment, I felt the echo of something Yuval Noah Harari wrote years ago in Homo Deus: that the next great human project would not be to save souls, but to upgrade bodies. That death itself would become a technical problem to be solved.

---

From the Parade Ground to the Open Road

I served in the Brazilian Army’s NPOR — a year of discipline, leadership, and learning how to carry responsibility. I never saw war, but I learned the military’s quiet truth: you train for the day you might have to face death, not for the day you might escape it.

Now, years later, my battlefield is the open road. My wife, our three‑year‑old daughter, and our two little dogs have been my unit for the past two years as we’ve rolled through South America in our Kombihome. We’ve crossed borders, climbed mountain passes, and parked under skies so full of stars they felt like they might spill into our laps.

Life on the road teaches you about impermanence. The Kombi needs constant care — oil changes, tire checks, little repairs to keep her going. And so do we. But unlike the Kombi, our parts aren’t meant to be swapped out forever. Or at least, that’s how it’s always been.

---

The Mirage of Forever

In Taoist thought, life is a river. You cannot dam it without changing its nature. You can slow it, redirect it, even drink deeply from it — but to try to make it stand still is to kill it. The river’s beauty is in its movement.

Yet here we are, in an age where billionaires fund longevity labs, where scientists grow organs in bioreactors, and where heads of state muse about replacing body parts like worn tires. The dream of immortality is no longer myth; it’s a line item in research budgets.

Harari warned us: “In the 21st century, humans are likely to make a serious bid for immortality. Not just for the rich and famous, but for anyone who can afford the treatments. The big question is not whether it can be done, but who will get access.”

---

The Organ as Currency

When I hear talk of “continuous organ replacement,” I think of the Kombi’s spare parts — but also of the darker markets I’ve read about. In certain corners of the world, a human kidney can fetch more than a family earns in a decade. It’s a grotesque economy — one where the body becomes a bank account, and the poor become unwilling donors to the rich.

Now imagine that economy scaled up, sanctioned, and wrapped in the language of “biotechnological progress.” Imagine a world where the elite can replace their organs indefinitely, while the rest of us are told to eat better, exercise, and hope for the best.

Harari put it bluntly: “Once technology enables us to upgrade humans, we will probably see the emergence of a new class of superhumans… and the gap between them and the rest will be far greater than any economic gap in history.”

---

What If We Lived to 200?

Let’s play with the thought experiment. Imagine you, me, my wife, our daughter — living to 200. Not just existing, but thriving — swapping out organs like spare parts, editing our DNA to erase disease, using neural implants to keep our minds sharp.

• Spiritually: Would we still feel urgency to forgive, to love deeply, to take risks, if we knew we had centuries ahead? Or would we drift, postponing meaning until “later”?

• Mentally: The human brain evolved for a lifespan of maybe 70–80 years. What happens when we carry memories across two centuries? Will we drown in nostalgia, or will our minds adapt, pruning the past to make room for the future?

• Day-to-Day Life: Careers could last 100 years. Marriages might span multiple lifetimes in emotional terms. Education could become a lifelong loop, with people reinventing themselves every few decades.

• Society: Retirement might vanish. Politics could be dominated by leaders who have been in power for 120 years. The generational cycle — the engine of cultural change — could slow to a crawl.

Harari foresaw this too: “Once we can radically extend life, the social, economic, and political systems we have built will be utterly inadequate. We will need to reinvent everything — from marriage to retirement to the very meaning of being human.”

---

The Spiritual Counterpoint

Buddha taught that clinging is the root of suffering. And what is the quest for immortality if not the ultimate clinging? We cling to youth, to influence, to the illusion that we can outwit the seasons of our own bodies.

On the road, I’ve met elders in the Andes who measure life not in years lived but in harvests seen. I’ve shared tea with monks in Thailand who laugh at the idea of wanting to live forever, because to them, each life is just one chapter in a much longer story.

The irony is that in trying to escape death, we often stop living. We trade the richness of the present for the fantasy of an endless future.

---

Lessons from the Kombi

The Kombi has taught me that maintenance is part of the journey, but so is knowing when to rest, when to let the engine cool, when to accept that some parts are original and irreplaceable.

If one day, biotech lets me replace my heart, my liver, my lungs — will I still be me? Or will I be like a Kombi with every part swapped out, the soul of the machine replaced by something newer, shinier, but somehow… less alive?

---

A Call to Awareness

We stand at a crossroads. On one path, we use biotechnology to heal, to restore, to give more people the chance to live full lives. On the other, we let it become a tool for the few to hoard vitality while others are harvested — literally — for parts.

The choice will not be made in a single vote or treaty. It will be made in labs, in hospitals, in quiet policy meetings, and in the conversations we have about what it means to be human.

---

Closing Reflection

Lao Tzu wrote, “If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to.”

I believe the real immortality is not in the body, but in the ripples we leave — in the kindness we show, the wisdom we pass on, the courage we model. The Kombi will rust, the road will end, the body will fail. But the song we sing into the world can outlast us, carried in the hearts of those we’ve touched.

So let the emperors chase their organs and their centuries. I’ll take my river as it is — flowing, unpredictable, and gloriously finite. And if one day, by some twist of fate, I find myself at 180 years old, sipping maté outside the Kombi with my great-great-great-grandchildren and two very old dogs, I hope I’ll still remember: the point was never to live forever. The point was to live fully.

---