[ WP ] Humans have - by a very large margin - the longest lifespans of all intelligent life in the universe . You are a human student at a multi- species college , and you / your friends are just realizing that compared to them , you are an ancient being .

the Corrs had come to the solar system as invaders. They established colonies on the moons, planets, and asteroids, grabbing the whole solar system, and negotiating for more and more land on Earth in exchange for some minor technological boosts, until starting to feel confident enough to play hard ball with humanity. 
 
 Unlike humans, the Corrs were single-cellular, much smaller, and had a much smaller life span - enabling a group of a few hundred stellar travelers to multiply into the billions within a few decades. 
 
 Humanity fought back, managed to gain a lot of technology from the aliens in the process, and reconquered the whole system after a few more decades of intense fighting. 
 
 The fight had alerted other alien species, some of whom were enemies of the Corrs, and helped humanity with weapons and technology. Those, too, were all single-celled, mostly smallish, and fast-lived. 
 
 When the war was won, a select group of humans were chosen to attend a university of their new alliance. It had members of most known intelligent species - and taught about some more, probably all that existed in the universe. And all except humanity were single-celled, and fast-lived. 
 
 The humans found themselves to be center of attention by their peers, and even the profs. They willingly gave blood samples, which were grown into small embryos, and then abandoned after a few human weeks or months, because the profs starting the project eventually retired. 
 
 The humans were quite proud of their longevity and the special status of their cell structure. But they found out that the general consensus was to find it disadvantageous. The other species found it more practical to quickly be able to exploit resources and energy, to not have to deal with parasites hiding between cells, and so on. Humans were no more than a curiosity, considered slow in thinking and acting, but good at using long term experience to deal with much faster opponents. 
 
 One day, one of the human students asked one of their alien peers why they would n't try to increase their life expectancy. The alien was at first dumbfounded by the question, then told the humans that they had actually increased their life spans quite a bit, especially in earlier times of their technological `` waking up'' as a species, but then gone for what they perceived to be the optimum between collecting experience and starting a new generation with improved capabilities. Also, considering that they were much faster, they actually collected as much knowledge in a year, as humans did in 100 years. They shook their heads at our attempts to prolong our lives, when, in their opinion, we should concentrate on making our bodies ( and minds ) work faster, as this was a much more urgent problem, according to them. 
 

