"When I see these oldsters lifting 16 pound barbells with a pose that suggests they've just run a marathon I snarl at them, and say 'Look at me! I can't run! I can't lift barbells!.....Who are you to say old age isn't for me?
Old age is for anybody who gets there. Old age is for the healthy, the strong, the tough, the intrepid, the sick, the weak, the cowardly, the incompetent. People who run ten miles every morning before breakfast and people who live in a wheelchair... Old age is less a matter of fitness or courage than of luck equals longevity.
The compensations of getting old, such as they are, aren't in the field of athletic prowess. I think that's why the posters with the tag 'old age isn't for sissies' annoy me so much. They're not only insultng to sissies they're beside the point." - Ursula K. LeGuin, 'No Time To Spare'
"Some people think they don't have to worry about aging because science will soon be able to stop it. The unlikeliness of a perfect fix aside, cure aging then what? A great expanse of shapeless, seasonless life? Greater competition for resources, jobs, partners and everything else on this already crowded, environmentally failing planet?" Louise Aronson, M.D., Elderhood, p. 385
The late Nebula Award winning science fiction writer, Ursula K. LeGuin, doesn't go easy on the super agers and longevity humpers in her book named above, from which that quote came (pp. 10-11). And why would she? She's sensible and intelligent enough to recognize (as she continues) that: "nothing guarantees health to the old". No amount of exercise, arugula, religious devotion (found to be an important "key" to longer life), social networking or whatever, will make a dime's worth of difference. As she puts it (ibid.):
"No matter what you eat and how grand your abs and blabs are, still your bones can let you down, your heart can get tired of its incredible, nonstop lifelong athletic performance ... and there's all that wiring and stuff inside that can short circuit".
As in trigger cancer of one organ or the other, no matter how healthy you believe you are or how terrific your diet is. Besides, you could run into other bad luck as well, including accident, or serious illnesses, like Alzheimer's. Here I recall my sister-in law Krimhilde, one of the healthiest, fittest people I knew. A lifelong vegetarian who hiked 5 miles a day plus did yoga for 2 hours.
But it all went south at her 80th birthday when she developed Alzheimer's.
Hence, Ursula K. Le Guin's POV is that of a welcome realist as opposed to the delirious longevity pushers.
This is relevant again as too many are being deluded into pop-eyed foolishness published in the form of bunkum in the mainstream media. In this case how you too can live to be 100+ just like a 105 y/o lady sprinter (Ida Keeling) on the cover of Sunday's PARADE. Folks, do not be deceived by such fanciful longevity B.S. This lady is the exception and not the rule, similar to one Orville Rogers (another centenarian) featured in a MONEY magazine issue from November, 2018, e.g.
Then noting he "retired at age 60" according to the piece, after decades in a high- paying, sweet bread desk job. . The authors of the piece then went on to admit retirement planners "are losing sleep" over the amount ($195k) most 65 year olds currently have socked away. This interjects the issue of how super elderly folks will live - if they lack cushy pension, health care benefits and other support. As the MONEY article registers the potential inflation:
"At just 2 percent inflation the gallon of milk that cost you $3.75 today will cost you $6.79 in 30 years."
That means a 65 year old today will need to sock away at least $5 million in a nest egg to be able to live to at least 100 years - and that assumes only one nursing home stay (or nursing assistance at home) of no more than 6 months, one time in that duration of 35 years.
It is indeed this aspect of financing any extended longevity these longevity research geniuses never broach, or provide practical solutions. How will the super elderly then maintain financial security and their implied independence until they finally shuffle this mortal coil? These are pertinent questions given Social Security will reduce benefits 25% by 2035 and Medicare faces insolvency by 2026 - meaning many seniors will face having to enter privatized plans. Neither of the articles in PARADE, or MONEY or an earlier one in TIME (March, 2015)e.g.
Address any of these matters, choosing to nibble around the edges with impractical baloney, babble and "hope" i.e. "corporations will have to change" which is not a plan. WHO is going to make them change? A 105 year old granny who likes to do sprints? A Business friendly GOP Senate? Give me a break.
Even if these "super ager" elderly somehow managed to find a company that'd hire them to work at least until 90 or so, it's still doubtful they'd amass enough money for future support. Given increased health care costs- the fastest rising aspect of the national budget ( and no end in sight) - most people would probably need to at least win a state lotto of ten million to be able to live to 120 without being in penury. And at least $2 million to live to 100 without raiding dumpsters and eating pet food. But why don't those feeding you the super ager claptrap tell you any of that? Why would they? It kind of adds a buzzkill aspect to their hype.
TIME - in its own take- wrongly assumes in its prologue to the initial piece that: "Everyone wants to live longer", but that desire comes with caveats galore for rational folk . For example, why would anyone today, at say age 67 or 68, want to live to even 100 when numerous "hells" are set to be unleashed especially as climate change- global warming enters its ultimate phase?
If you think the climate hiccups being experienced now - including the constant polar vortex intrusions and superstorms - are a big deal, stay tuned for the first year of no seasons and ensuing heat waves lasting 90-120 days with mean temperatures 100-110F. Even before then, say by 2025-2030 we will likely see electrical blackouts over extended periods, water shutdowns (or breakdowns of decaying urban water delivery systems, since we haven't done shit to repair them) and even power grids collapsing from excess demand - with tens of millions trying to "stay cool", keeping thermostats at 81F.
You really want to stretch your years out to live in those conditions? REALLY? Well sure, the richest one percent will because they can afford to - living in their golden -gated condos far from the decaying cities that will have no backup power. But again, where would you get the money to support yourself even if you wanted to live so long and possessed the genes needed to enhance the odds? Most finance folks I know agree those aspiring to such need to win at least one lotto, maybe two. Or come into a $2- 4m inheritance or have rich adult offspring to provide support. (The super agers shown in the media pieces are all either independently wealthy or have external sources of income to support their lifestyles. Ida Keeling, for example, is blessed with a "real estate investor" youngest daughter. What about the oldsters who have no offspring?)
In the case of males, the late life -taker is prostate cancer (which I am still dealing with) and then making the critical decision - if advanced cancer rears its head- to submit to one of the most barbaric treatments possible. That would be hormone therapy which basically destroys what makes a man a man, biologically, as revealed in this eye opening video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtIfsvQh2qI
Most men faced with this choice will already have reached the age of 75-77. So the question becomes: Is it really worth it to go through all the agony of the side effects for a few extra years? In his bid for more years he must be willing to accept: developing hard, excess breast tissue - which then may have to be surgically removed, 5x higher cardiac risk, diabetes, shrunken genitals ("they are reduced to prepubescent stage" according to one researcher) not to mention severe depression and cognitive impairment akin to Alzheimer's. Many guys in the support group to which I belong (Team Inspire) are still willing to grab 5-10 more years of life - even in reduced life quality- which those like Ehrenreich regard as absurd. I would add here the opinion of UPenn oncologist and bioethicist Zeke Emmanuel, from an essay he wrote some years ago: 'Why I Hope To Die At 75' , e.g.
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/09/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/:
"Here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic."
In her own take, Barbara Ehrenreich observes that contemporary society is:
"so deeply invested in the idea of an individual conscious self that it becomes both logically and emotionally impossible to think of a world without it."
In Ehrenreich's view there is one time-honored balm for the anxiety of approaching self-dissolution. And it isn't more chemo, more lab tests more cryotherapy or getting your balls cut off to fight prostate cancer at age 75. No, it is "submergence of oneself into something larger than oneself".
For most Americans, like the guys in the prostate cancer forum, a truly alien concept. For my own take, plowing more money into Alzheimer's research is a better investment than squandering it on fulfilling longevity fantasies.
See Also:
Getting away from the exceptions like Orville Rogers and Sprinter lady Keeling , we know geezers use up more expensive medical care than any other demographic, up to $500m / yr. of which $150 million is spent in the final month of life. Consider: In the 10 years since the last financial crisis that works out to a total of $1.5 billion spent in the final month of life.
Fortunately, facing off against the longevity nuts we have another realist and strong rationalist, Barbara Ehrenreich, who has been trying to get more elderly to raise their consciousness regarding death. To treat it as a transition and not something to be feared and despised, e.g
Fortunately, facing off against the longevity nuts we have another realist and strong rationalist, Barbara Ehrenreich, who has been trying to get more elderly to raise their consciousness regarding death. To treat it as a transition and not something to be feared and despised, e.g
As she puts it (The Nation, 'The Great Equalizer', October, 2018, p. 32):
"No matter how much effort we expend, not everything is potentially within our control, not even our own bodies and minds. In death we will once again be equals - and so an egalitarian politics also means accepting this outcome.
You can think of death bitterly or with resignation, as a tragic interruption of your life, and take every possible means to postpone it. Or, more realistically, you can think of life as an interruption of an eternity of personal nonexistence, and seize it as a brief opportunity to observe and interact with the living, ever surprising world around us."
Of course, most Americans are squeamish in terms of death - even discussing it, tending toward euphemisms- and more likely to buy into the codswallop of the longevity researchers. That would be the clique of life extension quacks and fanatics who believe many of us could even live to 142. (To which Janice first responded, "Those oldsters had better improve on the art of begging! They'll need it!")
You can think of death bitterly or with resignation, as a tragic interruption of your life, and take every possible means to postpone it. Or, more realistically, you can think of life as an interruption of an eternity of personal nonexistence, and seize it as a brief opportunity to observe and interact with the living, ever surprising world around us."
Of course, most Americans are squeamish in terms of death - even discussing it, tending toward euphemisms- and more likely to buy into the codswallop of the longevity researchers. That would be the clique of life extension quacks and fanatics who believe many of us could even live to 142. (To which Janice first responded, "Those oldsters had better improve on the art of begging! They'll need it!")
Ouch! A dose of reality as usual.
Ehrenreich herself got her wake up call in the course of writing her last book, 'Bright -Sided' in which she used her own breast cancer diagnosis as the basis for a striking critique of the whole "positive thinking" twaddle. In this case, puncturing the trope that people with cancer (like me, prostate cancer) are most likely to survive if they keep thinking optimistically about recovery.
Then in her latest book; 'Natural Causes: An Epidemic Of Wellness, The Certainty Of Dying, And Killing Ourselves to Live Longer' , she blows the lid off - revealing the body's macrophages as the ultimate 3rd column enemy. While in normal conditions they are the body's 'blue collar workers' - disposing of dead and injured cells, acting as a vanguard of defense, they can also quickly deviate into a more sinister role - as when they aid and abet cancerous growth. In that case, "they serve as cheerleaders of death accumulating at the site of cancerous tumors and encouraging their growth".
Then in her latest book; 'Natural Causes: An Epidemic Of Wellness, The Certainty Of Dying, And Killing Ourselves to Live Longer' , she blows the lid off - revealing the body's macrophages as the ultimate 3rd column enemy. While in normal conditions they are the body's 'blue collar workers' - disposing of dead and injured cells, acting as a vanguard of defense, they can also quickly deviate into a more sinister role - as when they aid and abet cancerous growth. In that case, "they serve as cheerleaders of death accumulating at the site of cancerous tumors and encouraging their growth".
In the case of males, the late life -taker is prostate cancer (which I am still dealing with) and then making the critical decision - if advanced cancer rears its head- to submit to one of the most barbaric treatments possible. That would be hormone therapy which basically destroys what makes a man a man, biologically, as revealed in this eye opening video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtIfsvQh2qI
Most men faced with this choice will already have reached the age of 75-77. So the question becomes: Is it really worth it to go through all the agony of the side effects for a few extra years? In his bid for more years he must be willing to accept: developing hard, excess breast tissue - which then may have to be surgically removed, 5x higher cardiac risk, diabetes, shrunken genitals ("they are reduced to prepubescent stage" according to one researcher) not to mention severe depression and cognitive impairment akin to Alzheimer's. Many guys in the support group to which I belong (Team Inspire) are still willing to grab 5-10 more years of life - even in reduced life quality- which those like Ehrenreich regard as absurd. I would add here the opinion of UPenn oncologist and bioethicist Zeke Emmanuel, from an essay he wrote some years ago: 'Why I Hope To Die At 75' , e.g.
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/09/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/:
"Here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic."
In her own take, Barbara Ehrenreich observes that contemporary society is:
"so deeply invested in the idea of an individual conscious self that it becomes both logically and emotionally impossible to think of a world without it."
In Ehrenreich's view there is one time-honored balm for the anxiety of approaching self-dissolution. And it isn't more chemo, more lab tests more cryotherapy or getting your balls cut off to fight prostate cancer at age 75. No, it is "submergence of oneself into something larger than oneself".
For most Americans, like the guys in the prostate cancer forum, a truly alien concept. For my own take, plowing more money into Alzheimer's research is a better investment than squandering it on fulfilling longevity fantasies.
See Also:
