You know how so many people say "Oh, I wish I was immortal" and then justify it for the lamest reasons?
It's funny. None of them really grasp the concept of immortality.
It's easy to understand the core meaning of immortality - the inability to die - yet so difficult to understand the effects it would have on one's mental health. It's easy to think "Oh, I'd be sad when all my friends and family would have died", but most people never realize that what truly hurts is the fact that, no matter who you meet, you'll eventually lose. New friends, new family, new pets, all of them will be born, grow old and die. But you will not.
And here is where the problem begins. After you understand that you'll be the last person standing, things start looking different. Priorities change. Nothing will ever be the same.
In fact, part of what makes one a human is death itself. It's the reason why we value life so much. Because it is finite. One day, you'll say goodbye to this world. And yet, while you don't, you try to enjoy your stay… or at least, try to make it through the whole thing.
What now? You isolate yourself. You keep some distance from everyone else, afraid to hurt yourself. But you're still too human. You still need the company only other people can offer. That's a defining aspect of any human with a rational brain - the fact that they were born as social animals. (Antisocials aside, of course; you people are weird.)1
So you cycle between periods of isolation and socialization. You sleep for years, and wake up for some other years. And you grow further away from mankind.
And mankind evolves. In their own, twisted way, the kind of way that kills everything around you. Millions of species gone, some others about to die; all because of their machinery, all too complicated to be made sustainable.
And then suddenly, one day, you wake up, and there is nothing to look at anymore.
They finally ended it for themselves. With the power of nuclear weaponry, every single last member of the human race is gone. Not even cockroaches survived, because they need food, and there's no more food.
So you walk around, and look at what once was your home. Hyperurbanized, densely populated cities reeking of pollution and of fallout. (Does fallout have a smell? I have forgotten.) But now, they're all empty, mostly torn to sheds. Abandoned. Left to rot, fall, and die. Only 30 humans remained, important governors and monarchs trying to escape using their fancy ships, made to escape to the next inhabitable planet. And they failed, because these ships were raided earlier, left with no fuel - forever ready to go look for somewhere to contaminate a planet with their disgusting kind.
And you fall asleep once more - this time, for hundreds and hundreds of millions of years, simply hoping that you would never have to wake up ever again.
But history repeats itself. And the Earth became inhabitable once again, after Mass Extinction Events.
I have learned something after all of these years I have been alive for. Though I never was human (nor had I ever looked human), that doesn't mean I could have not tried to help them.
The last iteration was never meant to survive - they never left the coal mines, forever stuck in an Alpha version of the Industrial Revolution. But this iteration? They evolved. They went further. They live longer, they heal faster, they know better, and for the first time, they're genuinely concerned about their planet. They're more concerned about their freedom, their reason to live, their meaning. They know what they need to do to make their world a better place.
All they need is a little help. And I'm glad to have studied for the last 98 years non-stop.