Sunday ☕ : How to Live Forever

The morning light illuminates golden-green pollen as it drifts through the sunbeams, nature’s own glitter suspended in air and tickling my nose, much like the scent of sweet perfume from the color-filled wildflowers that filter among the spring grasses, growing wildly out of control like a rumor at a small town diner.

Here I sit comfortably on my long, covered Texas porch overlooking the distant hills as I spot a smattering of Indian paintbrush, LYF (little yellow flowers), and a couple of iridescent bluebonnets lending their fragrance to the breeze.

A chorus of bees hum their industrious melody among stands of tall greenery, within earshot but thankfully not within reach. We recently made our way back from the warmth of Florida beaches and have now returned to the ideal spring climate, the comfortable perfect days before the oppressive Texas heat sets in.

It’s good to be home, and just in time for Easter. Happy Easter to you!.

Solitude Embraced

Sundays offer a different quality of silence than other days. It’s a chosen quietude rather than an absence of sound imposed by circumstance. My phone remains face-down, notifications accumulating unheeded. There is luxury in this deliberate disconnection, this small rebellion against perpetual availability and the dopamine rush of being needed. Somehow I’ve managed to resist reading my social media for a full month. I feel like I’ve had a restful time away. Oh, if I could give it up entirely and still survive in business.

Wisdom Distilled

As I cradle my mug, I ponder the strange headlines about scientists working to cheat death through 3D-printed organs and brain transfers. Immortality in a lab, they promise. And recently news that if you sit in a hyperbaric chamber every day for 60 days, you can gain the health and cognition you had 20 years ago. Maybe I could check my social media while in a hyperbaric chamber while getting red light therapy after swallowing my 30 daily vitamins to reverse my aging? Hmm … something more to do.

Do we really want to live forever? Or should we give others a chance at their turn on earth?

Tales Transcend Time

My great-great-grandfather has now lived for about 270 years. He was a Tennessee sheriff with wisdom that outweighed his ammunition. Legend tells how he spotted a fugitive by a campfire, and, instead of rushing in with guns blazing like some dime-store novel hero, he removed his badge, approached unarmed, and said, “Howdy, stranger, can you spare a cup of coffee?” Over flames and conversation, he disarmed the man with interest rather than intimidation. Eventually, he admired the fugitive’s gun, held it in appreciation, and only then made his arrest. Five generations later, I sip my coffee and realize I know a man I’ve never met — his patience, his cunning, his humanity — all preserved not in formaldehyde but in family narrative. He lives on.

Legacy Through Osmosis

Scientists tout hyperbaric chambers promising 20 additional years, while I silently transmit centuries to my children without even trying. My father’s entrepreneurial confidence flows through me like genetic material, not because he lectured me on business principles, but because I witnessed his phone calls, his negotiations, his presence. “Dad College” had no tuition but paid dividends beyond calculation. Now my children roll their eyes at my intentional lessons but absorb my every interaction — how I speak to strangers, how I treat their mother, how I navigate disappointment. They’re downloading my operating system whether I acknowledge the file transfer or not. It’s how I’ll live on … like it or not.

Immortality’s Mirror

I wonder which of my expressions my daughter will unconsciously mirror at 40. Will she inherit my laugh or my scowl? My generosity or my occasional insanity? The thought sobers me faster than my caffeine. We chase longevity supplements and cryogenic preservation without realizing we’re already achieving a kind of immortality through behavioral inheritance. I’m embarrassed recalling the times I’ve complained about bad drivers or slow service with my children watching — those moments potentially echoing through generations like ripples in ancestral waters.

Deliberate Eternity

As I take the final sip of my now-cooled coffee, loaded with lion’s mane to prevent Alzheimer’s, cinnamon to reduce inflammation, and MCT oil to superpower my brain, I wonder if wisdom follows the same pattern — revealing deeper notes with time and perspective.

The longevity movements focus on extending our individual timelines, but they miss that we’re already smeared across time like watercolors bleeding beyond their borders. My great-grandfather’s jovial nature and creative business skills were adopted into my father’s life through osmosis, then unknowingly transferred to me — a kind of immortality achieved not through science but through story and presence.

Perhaps my artistic side comes from my mother’s Aunt Ruth, whose oil paintings hang in the homes of her descendants, skills and passion probably acquired from a generation or two before her. Our mental DNA and behavior may have been passed down for hundreds of generations. We don’t need hyperbaric chambers to transcend our lifespans; we need mindfulness about which parts of ourselves we’re programming into the future.

Tomorrow’s Ancestors

Setting down my empty cup, I realize that today I am someone’s ancestor — perhaps someone not yet born but destined to know me through the stories my children will tell, through the habits they unconsciously absorbed when I thought they weren’t paying attention.

The greatest form of immortality isn’t avoiding death but creating life worth remembering, worth emulating, worth passing down like cherished recipes or heirloom furniture. The bluebonnets beyond my window will wither by next week’s heat, but their seeds ensure next spring’s revival — just as our words and deeds plant themselves in generations we’ll never meet.

Wisdom Distilled

Perhaps the true path to immortality isn’t found in laboratories or hyperbaric chambers, but in the conscious cultivation of our legacy. Science may eventually print new organs or transfer consciousness to younger vessels, but it cannot manufacture meaning or transmit values. (Or can it?)

Our immortality project began the moment we entered this world and will continue long after we leave it — carried forward in the mannerisms of our grandchildren’s grandchildren, in stories told around future fires, in approaches to problems solved with wisdom accumulated across centuries. We live forever not by escaping death but by embracing the profound responsibility of life fully lived in full view of those who will carry us forward.

The most potent immortality isn’t measured in extended years but in extended influence — the invisible inheritance we leave that shapes worlds we’ll never see.

And what about the lives we touch, those we influence — who may change forever, then influence the outcomes of their future offspring?
The real question isn’t whether you’ll live forever. You will. The question is: What version of you deserves that kind of immortality?

PS: Can you follow the thread of influences in your own life?

As a child, I would lie awake at my grandparents’ house, mesmerized by a waterfall painting created by my grandmother’s sister. Later, I’d sit beside my mother at the dining room table, paintbrushes in our hands. She likely stared at that same painting as a child. My entrepreneurial DNA came from Dad, but this artistic strand — dormant for decades — suddenly sprouted one day like bluebonnets after a hard Texas rain.

I never anticipated a life in art; I was tracking toward radio because my father had been an announcer in his youth. Yet my artistic heritage led me to a mentor who planted seeds that grew wildly out of control.

To him, I was just another student, but his influence transformed my life’s direction. That passion fueled my interest in plein air painting, birthed a magazine that promotes outdoor painting, and helped launch what’s now considered the largest art movement in art history.
Who could have predicted that these inherited seeds would lead to a YouTube channel with over 10 million views, teaching people worldwide to paint? Now those viewers carry the artistic DNA passed to them, and it will penetrate future generations until some young person takes it beyond anything we could imagine.

Andy Warhol reportedly said that teaching 100 young people to paint in a certain way could influence the entire art world forever — which is precisely why I’m offering 100 scholarships to my upcoming Plein Air Convention in May. If I can influence 100 people under 25, their plein air DNA will spread, ensuring a promising future for this art form.

Your Artistic Legacy

What might happen if you set aside your excuses and fears to embrace that secret desire to learn to paint? Despite the negative thoughts telling you that you don’t have what it takes, you could alter your DNA and influence generations beyond you. And also make your own life richer.

The most joy-filled people I know are those who paint. I invite you to join us at the Plein Air Convention this May in Lake Tahoe. Take the risk — your life and future generations will thank you.

And for those ready to take their artistic journey further, I’ve just announced a plein air painting and touring trip to Switzerland this fall. With space for only 50 participants and already 20% sold out, I encourage you to learn more at www.paintswitzerland.com. The artistic DNA you cultivate today could become tomorrow’s masterpiece in the hands of great-grandchildren you’ll never meet —but who will carry your creative legacy forward like wildflowers spreading across hillsides, season after season, in an endless cycle of beauty.

Your Artistic Legacy

Today, families like mine will gather around a table for Easter dinner. Last night we colored Easter eggs, and when my adult kids awaken, they are expecting to hunt for their Easter baskets, just like we’ve done every year. And my guess is that tradition will carry on to their kids, just as I carried on what my parents did at Easter.
Days like this are priceless. Gatherings of family are priceless, and it is in these moments that our behavioral DNA gets passed along. Make it the best Easter ever.

As my family celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we wish you a Happy and special Easter, no matter how you celebrate. I’m honored that you bring me into your home on Sunday mornings.

Who Is This Guy Eric Rhoads?

Eric Rhoads is the founder and publisher of PleinAir Magazine and Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine (both on newsstands nationally), author and host of six Art Marketing instruction videos, writes a blog on Art Marketing, and is the author of the Amazon bestseller Make More Money Selling Your Art. Additionally, he produces the weekly e-newsletters American Watercolor, Fine Art Today, Inside Art, PaintTube ArtNotes, Pastel Today, Plein Air Today, and Realism Today. Eric hosts the in-person Plein Air Convention & Expo, the Fine Art Trip for art collectors, and painting retreats including Paint Adirondacks, Fall Color Week, and the Winter Art Escape, as well as online virtual events Acrylic Live, Pastel Live, PleinAir Live, Realism Live, and Watercolor Live. He is also the producer of the PleinAir Salon Online Art Competition and art instructional courses through PaintTube.tv. Each weekday Eric hosts Art School Live, a YouTube show featuring free demos from a variety of artists, and he is host of the PleinAir Podcast and Art Marketing Minute Podcast. Eric is a plein air, landscape, and portrait painter with works at Castle Gallery. He is heavily involved in the radio industry as founder of Radio Ink Magazine as well as Radio + Television Business Report, the Radio Forecast Conference, and the Hispanic Radio Conference. He is the author of the bestselling book Blast from the Past: A Pictorial History of Radio’s First 75 Years. Eric lives in Austin, Texas, with his bride, Laurie, and they are the parents of triplets. Learn more at EricRhoads.com, or see Everything We Do.