I've always found Bakker's depiction of Nonmen insanity a rather clever twist on the notion of immortal elder fantasy races. One can only imagine how LotR would have played out, had Elrond been as nuts as Incariol.

If some future advancement in life-extension technology allows humans to live for hundreds or even thousands of years (albeit in our current meat bodies, rather than as computer uploads or anything like that), and barring any sort of biological malfunction like super-centuries-long-Alzheimer's, how do you imagine human memory would hold up?

Would most people, like the Nonmen, find themselves remembering and rehearsing their trauma far more than anything else, until they become shambling piles of misery? Or would memory be more of a bubble trailing the present, so that one only clearly remembers things from the last century or two, with all else fading into obscurity? Perhaps another possibility?

Would such humans eventually become jaded to practically everything, both positive and negative? What would a society of Methuselahs look like? Supposing no one had to work, how would people spend their time?