longevity is getting old

My grandmother was a wonderful woman. She lived to be almost 96 years old and most of that was spent independently albeit the last 15 living on my parents property. And I wish she could have spent a few more years with us. Her age though was mere happenstance, and she never expected to be 85 much less 90. What i don't get is societies desire to live longer, as if the life expectancy isn't long enough. I'm not saying we should banish those that do celebrate their 90th or 100th birthday and beyond. But why, why are we so obsessed with everyone celebrating their 100th birthday.
I read an article today that like so many discovered a fact that I and probably many others who are privileged to have been brought up in long lived families realized- there isn't any magic to being a centenarian- 95+ adults have the same (bad) habits as the rest of us and as their departed generational counterparts. Now we have a study to prove it. In other words those beyond 95 don't exhibit anymore health conscientiousness than any one else, the same percentages smoke, exercise (or don't), are obese, etc. I and many others could have told them that for a fraction of what i'm sure the study costs but then again i'm not working in Washington.... I can remember my great grandmother (as i said long lived family) eating a plate of fried eggs, greasy bacon, and toast slathered in real butter every morning for breakfast and she lived to the ripe old age of 97.
The study went on to point out that just because there is no magic technique that guarantees a hundred year life span, doesn't give you carte blanche to do whatever you like health wise. Its all in genetics and those that make it to a century just got lucky in utero, so to speak. So me eating fried eggs, greasy bacon, and toast slathered in real butter every morning no more guarantees that i will live to be 97 than keeping money in mason jars in the freezer (as my great grand also did, wary of economic depression). What i'm really getting at is this article stated that scientists would like to develop drugs that harness these "good genetics" so that one day we may all have a chance to live to be 100. And this is where the article went from intellectual curiosity to disbelief for me. Disbelief that even as we already live about twice as long as people just two centuries ago, we still feel the need to live longer. Is this really a thing? What, in the next millennium is 200 going to be the new 100? I think one important point has been missed- you may live longer but u still get OLD. Yes my grandmother lived to be 95 but she wasn't an athlete or an acrobat, she got winded walking to the mailbox at the end of the drive, she suffered chronic skin tears, she didn't drive, and except for checking the mail she very seldom left a 40 square foot section of yard. My great was hospitalized for congestive heart failure three times and spent her last remaining years in a nursing home suffering from dementia. They were wonderful people and i'm glad that they were able to be part of my life but guess what- they were still OLD. I say that because i know most of the fascination with living longer is the idea of more time- more time to accomplish things, more time to enjoy the people in your life. Noble ideas but it doesn't play out that way- most people that live into their 90's and beyond have deterioration of the body, or mind, and sometimes both. Its not a place i want to be and i think if many people thought about it its not a place they want to be either. There’s no point in living long if you can't get out and enjoy the world or remember who your loved ones are. I don't think you'll read about many centenarians who are jetsetters or high powered CEO's or avid cooks. Do you honestly remember many 90+ people partying like it was 1999? Why because they got OLD- it doesn't matter what they did in their twenties or forties, they physically, and in some cases mentally, can't do those things anymore. So i ask, what’s the point in living longer? I think Ponce De Leon was after something much more promising though far less probable- the fountain of youth. And that’s something i can get on board with. Damnit if i'm going to live to be 100 then i want to be who i was at 25, mind and body wise. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way and i'd venture so far as to say it never will, no matter how long modern medicine keeps us alive, you can't bypass aging. Like it or not your body is an organic machine, and just like a car for example the older it gets, the more wear and tear, the more maintenance it needs- you don't see a whole lot of Model T's running around town- better technology, fuel efficiency, and modern convinces are only half the story, its also b/c they're OLD and therefore require much more maintenance than say a brand new Ford Focus. Sure, science can keep u alive, hell the way things are going it can even make u beautiful, but just like that restored, showroom condition Model T, you may still go and be nice to look at but u can't do the things a new model can.
So i just don't understand why that’s something people want, and wish for. Do take care of yourself but there’s no prize for getting old, they aren't handing out paychecks to centenarians, they're usually handing them bills, doctors visits, and surgeries. To me, growing older is like a bell curve and there comes a point where its not as much fun anymore. Not to mention the more morbid but true side, death is supposed to happen, its a natural check on resource usage that humans have already tinkered with too much. The planet is overpopulated with Homo sapiens as is- squandering resources, leveling forests, polluting the air and water. There’s a generation of Baby Boomers who are in danger of having no retirement benefits, social security, or medical care in a country hell bent on cutting services. Yet science apparently feels the need to keep us going longer so that we can chew through more resources faster and become a further drag on an already beleaguered national, and world, economy. I'm so glad they're working to solve the most pressing societal concerns. And part of me believes they have considered none of this, just as Ian proposes in Jurassic Park- "You were so busy with whether or not you could and never asked yourself if you should." If this kind of longevity science and anti-abortion activists get their whims i'm sure we can be well on our way to world economic collapse and all out starvation by 2050. *thumbs up*
I still have to ask why? Is it because people are afraid they'll miss something, hell you'll always miss something, no matter how good science gets at keep us alive because in the end you're still going to get OLD and the die. And its not like you'll be able to do anything about the somethings you do see at 105. Living a long life is not all its cracked up to be, instead of squandering the time you have, instead of wishing you had ten more years or live to see the next century, live your life now, take care of yourself, pack as much in it as you can everyday, and it really won't matter what your life span is. After all living a long time is getting old....

I miss the 90's and even the early 2000's for that matter. As much as i don't really believe in that kind of thing, perhaps the Mayan calendar is dead-on, maybe it really is all going to come to a screeching halt in 2012. Go ahead and fire up the joint, take that shot, and try to get into that hot friends pants before its too late (the whole "end of the world" thing works, trust me). Seriously though, in general the world is in a shitty place right now, and more specifically the US *is* a shitty place right now. Pardon me, but i'm sick and fucking tired of all the bad news from every corner of American life, everything is a doomsday prophecy from the media. In some ways i think they egg it on as if they forgot what they reported about before the "Great Recession." There was a time i could remember feeling good about the world, don't get me wrong it was never perfect, but it was progressive. Now, not so much, its as if we've forgotten how to function as a cohesive society.
And the federal and state deficits- i'm so done with hearing politicans moan about it, i'm tired of it being an excuse to make everyday Americans lives a living hell. Politicans are not businessmen, they don't understand the adage that you have to "Spend money to make money"- this is how FDR pulled the nation out of the Great Depression. You can't expect that cutting benefits, crushing unions, and killing public works projects is going to somehow stimulate the economy. Oh lookit, you closed your states budget gap- give your millionaire self a pat on the back while unemployment looms at an all time high and jobs are still as scarce as the fountain of youth. Fired a couple hundred public employees, layed off teachers and police officers- yah crisis averted, lets get back to business-as-usual. Good Job!....jackass. And the cycle continues because people will still be broke and you will have yet another budget deficit and it all happens again with you or a different rich asshole in office. By the way has anyone heard any congressmen or governor willing to take a paycut, get rid of their pension, or drop their benefits- not a peep- weird......
As a nation we've crutched ourselves so much on the world that we've lost the ability to stand on our own. Every time someone takes a piss in the Middle East oil shoots up $10 a barrel- why? its anyones guess really because we have enough domestic production at home but we don't use it. That would give people jobs and the economy may start to recover and then all our fearless elected officials wouldn't have an excuse to try and push draconian agendas through. Its beyond ridiculous. I sometimes have this sinking feeling that this is what Rome felt like before the fall.
Perhaps people felt this way before- in the Depression, during civil rights- but i think our government was a lot more agile then, filled with wiser people, fewer lobbies, and less special interests. Great Recession- it should be called the Great Clusterfuck but i guess that doesn't have the same ring in the headlines. Its all very depressing to the point where i don't read as much news as i used to, at this point who really cares anyway its that deja-moo feeling of i've heard and seen this bullshit before. Frankly an end of the world senario doesn't seem all that bad at this point. So heres to 2012- politicans you've got one more year to really fuck things up! Who's up for shots and a game of naked twister....

Well here i am, already behind the curve, on this beautiful Georgia day. I believe in following your instincts and sometime last week i had this urge to join blogger and start anew. I have no idea what may come of this, what i have to gain from it all, here i am all the same. I'm not new to blogging and maintained one on Livejournal for years but it was more or less treated as a true journal filled with random excerpts of my everyday life and, over time, it brought me to the conclusion that i still feel more expressive chronicling such things in ink on slightly dog-earred notebook pages. This blog i intend, while it will still delve into the personal, to be more on the commentary side of things, because if theres one thing i've been good at, besides drinking, its delivering my personal opinion.

Just yesterday a friend of mine posed an interesting question- "When did i give up, when did i stop trying, or caring?" Its interesting because i find myself feeling that way lately. My answer was that it happened sometime after we became "grown-ups"- that real life, if you can call it that, has a way of crushing dreams if you don't protect them. And this is true. But i think it goes deeper than that too. It is easy to see the big picture as a wide-eyed child dreaming of being an astronaut, palentologist, president, etc. And the big picture is good, but the devil is always in the details. Even in college we still dream those big dreams, surrounded by campus walls, sheltered from the building storm of reality that will rain on our heads the minute we toss those graduation caps in the air. Its somewhere after that, after we've run that pre-arranged societal achievement course, after the claps and cheers have faded, that many of us lose that drive. I know i feel as though i have.
I'm not saying a college degree signals aspirational curtains, but i do think too many of us have been doused by the overwhelming expectations awaiting, ran too many marathons to dead ends, and been generally treated like the grease on the corporate wheel. Its disheartening. What i am saying is this isn't the great frontier anymore, this is a world filled with red tape that you can just as easily get wrapped up in as cut through if you're not careful. Now more than ever before i think its obvious that we have created a society of elitists and corporations, a system that tends to value the yes-man over the free thinker. Its as though we've come full circle, as if the middle of the century never happened, the factories may be gone but we still feel like mill workers. The difference is todays society tells us "yes, you can!"
Perseverence IS what it takes, but it shouldn't be so damn hard- hard to find a job that makes you happy, that provides you with a balance of work and life, that pays well. Hell it shouldn't be so hard to find a good job. And that right there is where dreams get crushed, where you just stop trying because setting out to change the world or even that endcap weren't part of the company policy. That was me- toting my degree only to find its more about who you know, how much you cost, and the bullshit you can spin than about talent, intelligence, and hardwork. Politicians prove this everyday....
In our attempt to separate the cream it seems we've managed to achieve the exact opposite. One day you wake up and the bills are stacked high, and the house needs cleaning, and your almost out of milk and gas, and another ten hour day awaits you, and all you really need is another hour of sleep. Its sometime around then that your dream of being a celebrated artist, or owning that coffee shop, or joining NASA gets ever dimmer. You weren't a trust fund baby, the child of an executive, or a reality television star. You're not paid to think outside the box, do that on you're free time when you can find it. Nope, you're just you, groomed to be a cog in the wheel. 

At least thats my two cents- probably all its worth in this economy anyway....