Journal Article of the Month – ON AGING

Recommended by Rogue Scholarship on Aging

“Meaning in Life and Mortality”

Author – Neal Krause

Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health and the Institute of Gerontology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 2009 64B(4):517-527; doi:10.1093/geronb/gbp047

Address correspondence to Neal Krause, PhD, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, 1420 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029. E-mail: nkrause@umich.edu

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

Objectives: The purpose of this exploratory study was to see if meaning in life is associated with mortality in old age.

Methods: Interviews were conducted with a nationwide sample of older adults (N = 1,361). Data were collected on meaning in life, mortality, and select control measures.

Results: Three main findings emerged from this study. First, the data suggest that older people with a strong sense of meaning in life are less likely to die over the study follow-up period than those who do not have a strong sense of meaning. Second, the findings indicate that the effect of meaning on mortality can be attributed to the potentially important indirect effect that operates through health. Third, further analysis revealed that one dimension of meaning—having a strong sense of purpose in life—has a stronger relationship with mortality than other facets of meaning. The main study findings were observed after the effects of attendance at religious services and emotional support were controlled statistically.

Discussion: If the results from this study can be replicated, then interventions should be designed to help older people find a greater sense of purpose in life.

Boomers aging “longer and better” ? Not so fast, not so good, and tell me your zip code

One of the key issues in approaching any data regarding average life expectancy (ALE) in the United States and the interpretation of that one number – the magic number we hear about – and hope that “it” keeps” increasing is being cautious and specific about exactly WHO benefits from the gains, and WHY, and WHERE.  Furthermore, when the gains in ALE takes place over a period of time – what is the gain?  Look at the figure below – it shows the life expectancy for U.S. residents at age 65, by sex and race, from 1999 through 2006.

And? Well, take a closer look. The data show gradual increases in the number of years from 2000 to 2006 for whites, blacks, men, and women, with the increases ranging from 0.7 years for white women to 1.1 years for black women; life expectancy at age 65 years increased by 0.9 year for the overall U.S. population. The gain over six years was “upward” but I am always amazed by the number of people who assume we are adding (or increasing) 5-10 years to ALE per decade – but that is not the case. I can almost sense the heavy disappointment in many aging baby boomers: “Wait, let me get this straight – ALE at 65 increased by o.9 ? Whooopeeddedo – big frickin deal. That’s it? In six years? – Yeah, but if that is the case, then by the time I hit 75, then….oh, I see…..”

Upward in gains – yes. But like a rocket and overnight express change in ALE ? – No.

QuickStats: Life Expectancy at Age 65 Years, by Sex and Race — United States, 2000–2006*

And then there is other dimension of living longer – Is is any better? Again, it depends. But do not think that the boomers are leading some sort of humongus transformation in quality of life issues into the aging years. Instead of some big paradigm shift in health and functioning, maybe it is more realistic to say there is an incremental and progressive (slow and sure) transition, but again nothing to put up on your Facebook page and shout to the world. 

+ HEALTH STATUS

Health and Functioning Among Baby Boomers Approaching 60 

The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 2009 64B(3):369-377; doi:10.1093/geronb/gbn040

Linda G. Martin¹, Vicki A. Freedman², Robert F. Schoeni³ andPatricia M. Andreski³

Objective: To investigate whether the health and functioning of the Baby Boom generation are better or worse than those of previous cohorts in middle age.

Methods: Trend analysis of vital statistics and self-reports from the National Health Interview Survey for the 40–59 population. Specific outcomes (years of data): mortality (1982–2004); poor or fair health (1982–2006); nine conditions (1997–2006); physical functional limitations (1997–2006); and needing help with personal care, routine needs, or either (1997–2006).

Results: In 2005, the mortality rate of 59-year-olds, the leading edge of the Baby Boom, was 31% lower than that of 59-year-olds in 1982 (8.3 vs. 12.1 per 1,000). There was a similar proportional decline in poor/fair health, but the decline reversed in the last decade. From 1997 to 2006, the prevalence of reports of four conditions increased significantly, but this trend may reflect improvements in diagnosis and treatment. Functional limitations and need for help with routine needs were stable, but the need for help with personal care, while quite low, increase

Discussion: Trends varied by indicator, period, and age. It is surprising that, given the socioeconomic, medical, and public health advantages of Baby Boomers throughout their lives, they are not doing considerably better on all counts.

And finally, I hate to say  this, but I will: Tell me WHERE you live (your zip code, area code, etc. etc) and then I will tell you some more about how ALE will vary and how geography is (may- quite possibly be) destiny.

+ WHERE (Geography)

Although the average life span in the US continues to rise, gaps in life expectancy have changed little from 1982 to 2001. There is a wide gulf — as much as 33 years — between those who enjoy the best health and those who are most likely to suffer from illnesses, according to a new study published in PLoS Medicine. Researchers at Harvard University’s Initiative for Global Health and its School of Public Health divided the US into eight “Americas” based on factors including race, location, population density, income and homicide rates:

Asians, 10.4 million popuulation, $21,566 average income, life expectancy 84.9 years;
Northland low-income rural whites, 3.6 million population, $17,758 average income, life expectancy 79 years;
Middle Americans, 214 million population, $24,640 average income, life expectancy 77.9 years;
Low-income whites in Appalachia and Mississippi, 16.6 million population, $16,390 average income, life expectancy 75 years;
Western Native American, 1 million, $10,029 average income, life expectancy 72.7 years;
Black middle America, 23.4 million population, $15,412 average income, life expectancy 72.9 years;
Southern, rural, low-income black, 5.8 million population, $10,463 average income, life expectancy 71.2 years; and
High-risk urban black, 7.5 million population, $14,800 average income, life expectancy 71.1 years.

The primary cause of the disparities between racial and geographic groups is early death from chronic disease and injuries, an analysis of data from the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics showed.

Asian-American women living in Bergen County, NJ, enjoy the greatest life expectancy in the US, at 91 years. American Indians in South Dakota have the worst, at 58 years.

The differences were attributed to a combination of injuries and such preventable risk factors as smoking, alcohol, obesity, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, diet and physical inactivity — particularly among people from 15 years to 59 years of age. They were not due to income, insurance, infant mortality, AIDS or violence, said the study’s lead investigator, Christopher J.L. Murray, director of the Harvard Initiative for Global Health.

Bottom line: We have a long way to go in the domain of quality-of-life for aging Americans – and any time you hear or read about the ONE NUMBER – life expectancy in the US is………………..”_____”, you will say, Yes, however, it depends on……

thanks, Scott D. Wright

A Timely Proposal: Hourglass vs. Chronophage on Your Desk – and on Your Mind

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
       — Richard II, Act V, sc. Ii  (William Shakespeare)

If it’s peace you find in dying, well then, let the time be near…
      - Blood, Sweat & Tears (1969) “And When I Die” (original lyrics by Laura Nyro)

KEY POINTS: Gerosemiotics, icons, archetypes, time, hourglass, chronophage, aging, meaning

Let me introduce the new field of Gerosemiotics (oh no, what is he up to now?) where I will propose a new symbol – a sign – an image – a contemplative icon – a reflective focus point – that will stop you in your tracks, and I hope replace the standard images for “time passing” and the dusty icons for vanitas…you know the skulls, skeletons, candles, faded roses, hourglasses, etc. etc…
       zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………yawn

Okay, those images had their moments in the sun – but time for something new and different -

A good start (but not the one I have in mind) is the concept behind the Clock of the Long Now, also called the 10,000-year clock, is a proposed mechanical clock designed to keep time for 10,000 years.

(From Wikipedia): The project to build it is part of the Long Now Foundation. The project was conceived by Danny Hill in 1986 and the first prototype of the clock began working on Dec. 31, 1999 just in time to display the transition to the year 2000. At midnight on New Year’s Eve, the date indicator changed from 01999 to 02000, and the chime struck twice, to ring in the “third millennium.” That prototype, approximately two metres tall, is currently on display at the Science Museum in London. 

Okay, cool, I get it and agree with it. But again, a little too Newtonian for me. Then, I came across an article in WIRED magazine (see URL below) with the alluring title of: Ravenous Clock Runs Backward, Scares Children. 
http://www.wired.com/culture/design/magazine/17-02/st_chronophage

Now your talking !!!!! – tell me more – but it was the CLOCK that did it for me. It was a mashed up Jungian/Lacanian/Žižek thesis wrapped up in an operational setting of gerosemiotics.

Here is a little appetizer:

What the hell? -

Hmmm it is kinda of hellish…but hang in there – just follow along before I unveil the proposed signifier – that should end up on your desk – and on your mind…….

In this blog posting, I examine and consider the need for a 21^st century reminder of “time passing” which can assist our aging process in experiencing a deeper and sustained quality of life; that with our “search of lost time”, we come to appreciate the time that we have and the time that we need; especially, in a social-cultural setting that negates the aging experience and denies mortality and has fear of “the second half of life.”

As some of you may have figured out from previous roguish postings on the topic of aging, (for example – see The Curious Case of the Arrow of Time: The Vagaries of Preternatural Aging), I find the intersect of the notion of “time” (in all of the kaleidoscopic expressions in science and art) with gerontology (all things – “aging”) to be perpetually fruitful – and infinitely serendipitous.

Some might say I am obsessed with “time” – and I would agree, but in this regard:
Time is our constant companion on the journey of life – and the constant reminder life as finite –and thus our mortality. But why is this issue so important in the domain of aging?

Think back to your childhood years (or days) – and reflect on the significance of “time” (or better yet – the lack thereof). With the exception of the clichéd request by kids on a long road trip – “Are we there yet?” (which drives parents crazy exactly because of apperant lack of any mature perspective on time for most children – “We just left the driveway!”). Maybe it is the id overriding any standards for “time” when time does not seem to be corresponding to the preschoolers desire for the world to operate “their way and for their sense of ‘now’! But why stop at the pre school years? I have watched (pardon the pun) many adults look at their watches (or other time devices) in complete disbelief – “Where did the time go?” – “OMG… I’m late for the meeting again!” “Why does this always happen to me, this traffic is driving me nuts, sitting here wasting MY time.”

Really – your time?

I really do expect people in this culture and society (and in our time) to assume that “science” will come up with a cure for “time.” Come on, can’t someone invent more time? I just want to go ailse 12 at the Wal-Mart and get me some…more, oh hell, get me the whole box.” I spent time (again – how ironic) the past week hearing myself – and then others complain about daylight savings time, as though some Orwellian “boss” created the dumb mess and pulled the switch on our comfortable patterns and moved all of us up one hour…boom, just like that! I heard someone ask, “Who came up with this dumb idea? I don’t remember voting for it.”

Well, do you remember the year 1966 (see http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/b.html) and the Uniform Time Act?

No? Me neither, but at ten-years old at the time – it did not sink in anyway. But as an adult of (soon to be 54 years of age – chronologically speaking) mid-life, it makes a big damn matter to me at this point in time. Time…of which every second is more precious that it was last week or the month before, and the year before that.

My time, your time – it’s a timely topic. And like Richard II – I am obsessed that I waste too much of it – and in a karmic loop – “it’ now does waste me (aging). What a cruel twist of fate to look back on childhood and reflect that summers – ah yes –those long –perfect days – on nothingness – and timelessness – and it will all go on forever…. And my memory at this point in time can barely hang on to a poem that I read some time ago (and if anyone can track it down and provide the proper reference/citation, I would appreciate it) where the poet perfectly described the dream-like state of childhood, observing the world go by, but detached, innocently, by “flipping knives into the dust…” and seeing their parents move about in their own orbits…and the children left wondering what the world would be like…when they would grow up…

If I could tell my children…or my young students, or anybody…what the “world is like, when they do grow up”, it would be this: I would repeat the lines from the Bard –

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
         — Richard II, Act V, sc. Ii  (William Shakespeare)

and then hope to have a lengthy discussion about it. But ironically, I predict I would hear this in return from any would be audience, “Maybe some other time…later…I’m too busy right now.” Ouch.

            And therein lies the decay of the message, the wisdom, the sign, the symbol, meaning, the signficance of being sensitive to the philosophical, the existential, and ontological crux of “time.” Who has got the time to be bothered with the reminders of time being lost, whisked away, transformed into vapor, never to be recovered…yeah, who needs that? I’m on a roll baby, life in the fast lane, I’m multi-tasking, I’m cooking with gas, I’m on fire, I’m busy, I’m working here, get the f*$k out of the way, I’m coming through, no time left for you - (Guess Who sang that one? – sorry, had to do that), I’m in overtime, get some face time later…

            But then all of sudden, the blink of an eye, in the sweep of a few seconds, wow! – I’m dead. Dead. Wait a second…(sorry, no time in death), Oh yeah, that’s right…slow down!…(sorry, should have done that – back then)…Wait. WAIT ! I’m not ready, not me, somebody else…

            Time and tide(tyde) wait for no person {man, woman, child}

            Tempus fugit….

            Well, I’ll be damn. I wish someone would have told me about how fast it all goes…the next thing you know, the Reaper is there, knocking on my door (or on Dylan’s heavenly door). Ahhhh, thus the point of my blog……..>>>> We need – desperately, the reminders, the icons, the archetypal message, the symbols for the passage of time and that “it” is finite and fleeting; but, what do we have to help us with this critical dimension of life – and death.

Well, trust me, I have thought about this in our,         
                   Americanpostmoderncaptialisticmaterialistictechnological
                      Westernized/ culture/context/society/milieu/setting

So check this out – and perhaps an indication of my OCDness with time – it is the semantic web 3.0 going on in my head, and that which we might refer to as the “enchanted loom” as I reflect upon time (“x”) in context with (“y”)….Right, so here we go…River. So first, I think of (Memento-like) The movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, to which I have previously blogged about,

“Thus, I find it quite moving the movie is set in New Orleans and the Mississippi River flows on, but then Katrina is nearby, then the waters rise,  and the clock stops and whether it moves forward – or backward – it does make us stop to wonder about our lives (in and as) a moment – a flash of the firefly – and youth flashes by and by.” (S. Wright via WordPress.com)

And then to the Alan Parson Project and the song, Time,

    But time, Keeps flowing like a river, To the sea

And then to Marc Chagall’s painting, Time is a River Without Banks,

And then to Thomas Wolfe’s book, Of Time and the River,

And back to Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Time,

 And then over to the Chamber’s Brothers song, Time Has Come Today

Which leads to another song (Chicago Transit Authority, 1969) to cap the summary on this section, 

     Does Anybody Know What Time It is?

and,

Does anybody really care - If so I can’t imagine why

Thanks CTA ! (a.k.a. as Chicago) – Exactly my point.

And thus we continue with the blog in this direction = Reminders of time passing and out mortality. But why? Why is this important? Because, “it’ does not go on forever, at least not with us. It will come to end…despite the youth, the beauty, the botox, the hair color, the implants, the fat removal, the nip and tuck, the hormones, the supplements, the stock portfolio, the video game, or the grande-sized mocha, and the distorted reality that we have created with ignoring “time passing” all the while we shell out money to manage “time” in our “day” planners, iPhones, and Blackberries.

Look in the mirror.

“No, I do not want to…and even if I do, I will see what I want to see.”

Ah, yes, the fertile fallacy of living in our time; we are still engaged in alchemy after all. The mirror is wrong – I am still “young” – I will not die, that will happen to someone else – I eat time for breakfast…

Well, good luck with that and may hubris be your throne – and middle name.

In the mean time, I want to suggest that we consider and contemplate a modern re-visit to the notion of vanitas. But first, a quick look at the reminders found in the past.

VANITAS:

“A category of paintings (often, but not always still-lifes) alluding to the futility of life and the transience of earthly joys and possessions. The main vanitas symbol is the skull (standing for death), which is usually combined with other objects symbolizing the certainty of the end of all human existence on earth, such as a burnt-out candle, an empty/toppled cup, or rotten fruit, as well as symbols of wealth (money, regal adornments, jewelry) and sometimes, symbols of the arts and humanities (books, musical instruments), which outlast human life.

Let us examine a few exemplars of the genre:

            

And again, I ask: What are the modern reminders of such a concept (“time passing”; vanitas; mortality) that give us a healthy dose of “reality” in the context of an aging society – and as aging individuals. The answer is that we still seem to rely on the “old” HOURGLASS motif. It is the perennial gerosemitoic. It is even the iconic image for The Gerontological Society of America.

  

Let me offer Exhibit A to you the jury. As you will see, the HOURGLASS makes its appearance on three significant books recently published,

The Longevity Revolution by Robert Butler – and notice the sands pour into the top section of the glass rendering the “feel” of a perpetual supply of sand.

Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime by Aubrey de Grey – and notice that the sands “reverse” their flow in an upward manner (sort of like the notion of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) against gravity – and logic – and physics (at least on this planet).

The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life by Philip Zimbardo (and John Boyd) – and notice that the sands flow downward into the lower glass section but end up creating an interesting symbol (nice effect with two symbols one on book cover) for infinity, which makes think of the uroboros and the Möbius strip and etchings of Escher and the “universal” icon for recycling.

>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>

The hourglass as symbolic image has sustainability for conveying the “passage of time” and in fact, I have one on my desk – to my right – and next to my MacBook Pro and as I type to you (in real time). I have flipped it over a few times as I type this log out, and lo and behold, the white sand flows downward and the “time has passed” – but then I flip it over again – and again. Hmmmm, not (yet) quite making me feel the dusty hand of the reaper skeleton on my left shoulder to remind of essence of the need for ontological reflection; rather it seems to be more of a friendly and nostalgic reminder of “things gone past” like watching the Wizard of Oz or the old egg-timer on my grandmothers kitchen counter.

To be honest, I am more inclined to find affinity with the reminder of time passing on the covers of two of J.T. Fraser’s books:

Time: The Familiar Stranger – with a cover of the circular zodiac and botanical seasons

The Voices of Time – with a cover design of a labyrinth – which is a much-improved image in capturing the essence of time, at least in my opinion, than the dusty and dry hourglass. And yet, we can do better than the labyrinth too.

So, it is time to introduce a new gerosemiotic for our century – a reminder of time passing, mortality, and a little bit of the carpe diem that makes life interesting and qualitative. Yes, it’s time to move beyond the skulls, the candles, desiccated flowers, hourglasses, and left over “bling” – it’s time to hail the CORPUS CLOCK with the CHRONOPHAGE.

<Cue the music here: Wagner: Die Walküre – The Ride Of The Valkyries> crank it up !

       

Okay, the music fades —– and behold ! –

The invisible hand (apologies to Adam Smith) meets the unconscious mind (apologies to Freud) in the form of a creature “eating time” and the swinging mandala, the uroboros, infinity, the squaring of the circle, the circling of the square, a shiny and hypnotic pendulum, along with God’s big-time semiosis of divine punishment associated with the monstrous a la Alien – Locust-creature, all wrapped up and unveiled by Stephen Hawking. This chronophage has time running forward, backward, and stopping (or so it seems) – the curious case of the corpus clock and the chronophage (say that real fast!) observe and learn, and meditate – and now let us learn from the new gerosemiotic of “time passing” and ponder our fate, our life, and our time -

Now end this with one more song “Clocks” by Coldplay ….. and think about:

Closing walls and ticking clocks

And let the Corpus Clock/Chronophage feed upon your timeless dreams as you fall asleep reading the lines of Prospero:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Thanks, Scott D. Wright    tick, tock, tick , tock , tick, tock

Oh yeah, one more thing – please let there be books in the next world/dimension/paradise/hell too – whatever…
I mean eternity is a long time – so many books – and now – lots of time to get caught up (Scott) 

Fools Gold for the Silver-haired: Red Wine and the War on Aging

Still Searching for the Holy Grail in the Land of Rattus, Mus and Pan -
or – still wineing [sic] about the aging process

  

Men dig tons of earth
To find an ounce of gold –
              Heraclitus (Fragments)

Sure thing, man. I used to be a laboratory myself once.
              Keith Richards (when asked to autograph a fan’s school chemistry book)

There are many people among us who see aging as one of the (last?) great barriers to achieving a greater (higher?) level of human existence; it is seen as “the enemy” that has to be eradicated so that Homo sapiens can finally emerge from its chrysalis and then transform into something magnificent – into a fully-potentialed butterfly that lives forever. Aging is weakness, disability, decline, pain, and suffering. And of course many still equate “it” with the portal – the gateway – to death (which is the ultimate barrier). The linear flow of thought runs like this: aging = morbidity = mortality. Thus, to find a “cure” for aging would break the chain of cause and effect – and perhaps – no maybe, most certainly we would have achieved immortality. And there it is – the Holy Grail of it all. From ancient Chinese Taoism, to medieval alchemy, to the labs of modern science, we are still searching; we are still on the quest to find the elusive and mysterious answer to the riddle that even the Sphinx would ponder and find enigmatic and the core of existence.

And what would be the cure? What elixir would become the magic bullet? What potion would break the chain of mortality?  What pill would offset the “mortal coil”? Who can deliver the “fountain of youth” to our doorstep and into our mailbox so that we could experience life unlimited? It could be in the form of some herbal remedy, some mineral compound, perhaps it’s the sweat of virgins, or the testicles of the ox, or perhaps it could be caffeine, or wait, it’s gotta be this synthetic hormone, no wait, it’s this! – Red Wine. Holy sour grapes Batman, wine, of course- and not just the crappy Merlot, get me some of that Pinot Noir. And in our quest for the magic bullet, we test, we alter, we experiment, we measure, we observe the outcomes in our DNA brethren who are manipulated and endure injections, and surgery to solve the riddle.

My purpose in this blog posting is not to debate or contest the use of animals in laboratory research (generally) or in research on aging (specifically). Readers who wish to further pursue this topic may go to (as examples): http://www.apa.org/science/animal2.html or http://www.onlineethics.org/CMS/research/modindex/animalres.aspx or
http://ethics.iit.edu/resources/scientific.html#animal

Rather, my goal in this blog is highlight the way in research on aging “news” is released to the public (and packaged as a “news release”) with sensational headlines but often times very important issues are lost or overlooked or simply denied in all of the publicity and marketing tactics. The science is often perfectly sound and the results credible and the conclusions are typically modest and then balanced with a healthy dose of “limitations.”

Yet, something happens between the presentation at the conference, or the published proceedings, or the publication in the flagship journal – and the delivery of the “news” at various media outlets. I have covered this transformation process before in a previous blog posting, “Lost In Translation: From Neurology to “Party on, Wayne.”
{see http://uofugeron.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/lost-in-translation-from-neurology-to-party-on-wayne/}.

But in this posting I want to reexamine the issue within the context of latest elixir to be promoted as the Holy Grail for an anti-aging “magic bullet” – RESVERATROL

Resveratrol has become volcanic on the “hit parade” in web searches, especially after the 60 Minutes segment that aired on Jan. 26^th, 2009 where researchers told Morley Safer that a RED WINE substance (Resveratrol) could one day lengthen lives {see http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/25/60minutes/main4752082.shtml?source=mostpop_story}. Not only can you see the video segment there, but I have discovered that almost every company “selling” some variation of Resveratrol had the same video embedded in their internet page(s) where they were advertising their products with disclaimers —- usually posted at the very bottom of the pages like this

“Note: Science is still determining the most effective dosage of resveratrol for humans.”

Or

“Cancers Inhibited by Resveratrol According to Published Research†”

and what does the symbol “†” represent ?

† = In rodents and/or cell culture

And of course there are the convenient “buttons” that will bring you right to the online shopping cart where you can purchase the “magic bullets.”

The actual video segment is interesting not so much for the stunning acknowledgment that a human would have to consume about 1,000 bottles of red wine per day to get the optimal benefits of resveratrol (which certainly sounds like a French Paradox to me – and I would enjoy a good Pinot Noir as well as the next person, but all that massive wine consumption would even make Dionysus think twice)-

 But what was interesting to me was the “rat race” – with two mice running on a treadmill and the one with resveratrol getting ready for the Rodent Olympics, while the other one looked like it had run out of gas.

I do not know about you, but I was caught up in the moment (too – like you?), I had just seen the smoking gun! Rat A was kicking the ass of Rat B on the treadmill – now where can I get some of that good stuff. In fact, this new elixir might just help me break my habit of mixing Mountain Dew with Red Bull and Jolt in order to win the “rat race” at work (just kidding – right?)

The other interesting feature within the segment was the portrayals of “skinny” monkeys and “chunky” monkeys in context of caloric restriction diets and that effect on the aging process.  Now, I happen to find the caloric restriction strategy to make sense for living life in long lane – the science is there; but excuse me – when the segment then went to a party with the “skinnys”- people who were into hypermode with caloric restriction – I was initially shocked at the appearance of the party-goers. At first, I thought they accidentally slipped in a video clip for adult manifestations of Anorexia nervosa. I was on the verge of walking out to my truck and heading down to KFC and tanking up on some mashed taters with extra gravy – and throw is some more biscuits will ya?

But one thing we might have missed in the video segments: It’s all (still) research results on and from Rattus, Mus, and Pan, and the leap to Homo sapiens is still just that – a leap. The GENERALIZABILITY OF RESULTS is a huge factor here. But too late – the gates have opened up and the media has taken off chasing the rabbit – once again. The “news” that the results were limited to animals – and that it will be years before “empirical evidence” using scientific controls and studies on humans – can once and for all prove that we have the magic bullet in hand. And in any case, we are still back to this:

So, by reducing caloric-intake and popping some capsules of resveratrol, I can live longer? Okay, then what? What do I do with the longer amount of time?
More shopping? More golf?  

And therein lies the true riddle of the Sphinx – or better yet the strangeness of Zeno’s paradox: “In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.” Here is my question and concern as it relates to the quest for conquering the aging process:

                    If you were to live ten more years than expected –then what?
                    If you were live twenty-five years more than expected – then what?
                    If you were t live another hundred years than expected – then what?

What does change then? – if not for the fact that you have extended time. Well, there is more possibility and potential – and experience – and avoid, if at all possible – oblivion or what Shakespeare (via Hamlet) would refer to as “the undiscovered country” – the great unknown, which has been graphically “known” by others such as Dante via The Divine Comedy. But to think and know and feel that it would all be washed away as an antiquated event of the past – to what was in the “old days” to what is now possible: A new beginning, a fresh new frontier on the horizon where both aging and death are dispatched to the history books. Go science – go! Deliver us from all pain and suffering. Where do I sign up?

But really, truthfully, what changes? If one’s life was simply more of the same – only extended out further –and then forever, with the same “Groundhog Day” effect, for many this would soon resemble some Kafka novel where the blessing would twist into a curse, and the promise of paradise soon would become a living hell. Thus, my concern that the pursuit of the number – the increased age – the longevity addiction – the immortality quest – is what simply fogs up the counterweight of the PRESENT – and the MOMENT – and the experience that is the quintessence of life – which is no matter how long you live, what matter is the life – you give to life – for one minute or for a day or a year in a lifetime. In the eternal pursuit of the philosopher’s stone upon this earth, we have become distracted from quality of the moment – and to what makes the difference whether we live in some specified block of time deemed to be “short” “enough” “exceptional” – whether that is 25 years or 250 years.

In the book, Meditations – from the emperor/philosopher Marcus Aurelius, there is the blunt wisdom that makes one reflect upon the search and the struggle for wanting to overcome aging and mortality –

Our lifetime is so brief. And to live it out in these circumstances, among these people, in this body? Nothing to get excited about. Consider the abyss of time past, the infinite future. Three days of life or three generations, what’s the difference?

But that advice, that wisdom, is all but lost in our modern WAR ON AGING. Yes, a war on aging – and the first shot is directed against the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius because he lived in the Roman era of a short life span and thus, the Meditations are seen as “fossil-like”- interesting aphorisms trapped in amber. But my colleagues in the domain of bio-gerontology missed the point and the crux of his sayings.

On one level I am in agreement with my colleagues in this regard:

Why We Need a War on Aging
Based on presentation given at 2009 World Economic Forum in the Live Long and Prosper session, January 28, 2009 by Professor Julian Savulescu.
{http://www.practicalethicsnews.com/practicalethics/2009/01/why-we-need-a-war-on-aging.html}

“The goal should be to extend the HEALTHY, PRODUCTIVE lifespan, not to just keep people alive longer on respirators or in old people’s homes. This is embodied in the concept not of life span but “health span”.  The easiest way to do this is to prolong healthy life not attempt to compress morbidity.”

And my colleagues do address the “objections” to everyone living longer (within our finite ecological system, known as “earth”). I respect their points, but do not necessarily agree with their logic – or examples:

“We have an obligation to die and turn the world over to the next generation.”

“How long each generation should live raises deep questions about intergenerational relations, quality of life and burden of care. However healthy and able older people may be economically productive, self supporting and a source of knowledge, experience and care for younger generations, liberating younger people to work. The answers are not clear, especially when life extension is coupled with life enhancement. At any rate, since few of us believe there is a positive moral obligation to have children, that is to create future people, the obligation to create new generations must be weak.”

Meaning in Life? – “Many people fear that a longer life would result in boredom and a gradual loss of meaning. This would be more likely if one was a solitary Methuselah. But in a world where many of those close to us also lived longer, the greatest source of human well-being – deep human relations – would remain intact and arguably grow richer as that network expanded across generations.

“There is little empirical support that longer good life loses meaning. Research shows that life-satisfaction remains relatively stable into old age. One survey of 60,000 adults from 40 nations discovered a slight upward trend in life-satisfaction from the 20s to the 80s in age. With the advent of human enhancement– enhancement of cognitive powers, physical abilities and control of mood – this is likely to be even less of a problem.

“The challenge is to create longer and better life. But that too is within our grasp. We should aim for drugs to prevent normal memory decline, interventions to keep us physically and mentally active. Viagra is a good example. It deals with one effect normal human aging. 20 million men in the US find it of benefit and it no doubt contributes to meaning in their lives in some way.

And surely it is up to individuals to decide whether their lives come to lack meaning. For our part, we would take the longer life. Our goal should be more, much more, longer and better life. We need a war on aging.”

Where I disagree – or take issue – is this dimension:

While I appreciate their focus on the balance of outcomes = “longer and better” and “healthspan” versus “lifespan” – I remain skeptical about the so-called balanced focus in this quest. I see more about emphasis on “longer”(quantitative) than the “better” (qualitative) – and it is does not increase my confidence level any when the proponents of the war on aging simply shrug their shoulders with the caveat of “it is up to individuals to decide their lives come to lack to meaning.”

This is a classic example of science creating a firewall with its goals (and research) while hoping that other aspect of humanity (culture, religion, art, humanities, philosophy) will rush in to fill the void of “meaning.” Guess what? for many people (and or better or for worse) science is the “religion.” And if Viagra is an example of what science can do to “give meaning” to our lives (or is that only for men?) – then I propose we have allowed Erectile Dysfunction (ED) to trump Existential Dysfunction (ED) into the later years of life.

Terms like “human enhancement” sound too vague and ambiguous to me, especially with the notion of the “control of mood.” This almost sounds like that the answer to the “meaning of it all” is to be found in the daily dosage of SSRIs – or have we not read this in a Hollywood script for a movie once before?  I am very much for the medical and psycho-therapeutic treatment of clinical depression and anxiety disorders, but to put all of our stock into drugs (see Keith Richards pun-intended line at the beginning of this blog) as the key toward “fulfillment” with longer years of life sounds remarkably hollow and about as authentic as saccharin in my coffee – hyper-sweetness with a troubling aftertaste – and doubly ironic as saccharin has an interesting history with lab rats in terms of “causing” certain cancers (notice the “non-connection” to humans).

So, while we seek the Holy Grail of the aging process within animal models, I hope that in our quest (and focused determination) of the one thing (living longer) we do not leave it up to chance or accident or individual “choice” to acquire the other thing (living better).

            “Living better” is not something to be bought or created in the lab or ingested like Skittles candy –
               Living “better” may not even be the other side of the coin. Better than what? Better from what?

            I am convinced that if we – as a society – do not address these issue of the morality and ethics and the purpose and the duties and the responsibilities in a more in depth way in the context of living longer, we will inherit The Waste Land –

We will have defeated the CHRONOS – and perhaps will have lost the KAIROS.

Perhaps with our Pyrrhic victory, we will then see and learn from the way that it was – in the past, in the old days, when death instilled meaning by having us LIVE each moment as though it were the last. Living forever – the infinite – is not exactly a soothing thought to contemplate, just thinking about it stretches the mind – like Tom Stoppard’s quip with Infinity a  “…a terrible thought…where’s it all going to end?” (Stoppard, Tom, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Act 2, Faber, London, 1967).

Some have taken the bet – better to live longer and perhaps forever. The logic might be that one has “forever” to figure it all out” – and so what’s the rush? Foreverness is the answer and procrastination is the question.

If I had forever, would I have even written this blog posting contemplating the “it”?

Or did the fact that you took the chance to read my blog posting and made it this far – give you the impression that my writings seem like the “forever?”
             (just a little blogging humor to end with….

 – or does my desire to blog

never

end?…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Now, if they figure out that a cold Modelo and some Sauza Tres Generaciones Anejo (tequila) can help you live longer – I’m there –

 thanks – Scott D. Wright

———————————————————————————————————

Detailed Postscript (very optional)

First, let me say the biological logic of continuity for using “animal models” for research on aging has its rational merits; yet what I am most skeptical about – are the huge leaps in to the premature generalizations to Homo sapiens from the results/outcomes. I want to give the scientisits that benefit of the doubt that they qualify their results and state the limitations, but that does not stop the “publicity machines” form wanting something more. I can almost hear the writers in the marketing division saying ,”Yeah, yeah, yeah, nice, but what does it all mean? Rats and mice don’t read newspapers or web sites; what about our readers (human)? and potential donors? – and of course, the general public? They want to know we aren’t just screwing around over here. Give me something to work with here. What about this? “Red Wine – Just what the Doctor Ordered” or “Those crazy French were right after all”. We all need to read the fine print with both research and with the “shopping cart” before we hand over our money and our critical thinking.

Other sources and info -

Michela Gallagher, and Peter R. Rapp published an informative piece in the Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 48: 339-370 (Volume publication date February 1997) – THE USE OF ANIMAL MODELS TO STUDY THE EFFECTS OF AGING ON COGNITION – and they addressed the importance of animal models for understanding the effects of normal aging on the brain and cognitive functions; 1) studies of laboratory animals can help to distinguish between healthy aging and pathological conditions that may contribute to cognitive decline late in life; 2) research on individual differences in aging, a theme of interest in studies of elderly human beings, can be advanced by the experimental control afforded in the use of animal models.

Richard L. Sprott and Israel Ramirez (1997) in the LAR Journal V38(3) – Animal Models of Aging Research: Current Inbred and Hybrid Rat and Mouse Models, have offered these justifications:

Animal models are commonly used in aging research because they allow researchers to obtain data that are difficult or impossible to obtain from humans. Some studies that can, in principle, be done in humans are much easier to do in animals because of their shorter life spans. For example, measurements of changes over entire life spans, which would take many decades to complete in humans, can be accomplished in rodents in 2 to 3 years. Other kinds of experiments cannot, even in principle, be done with humans. Using rodents, researchers can manipulate breeding, extract tissues, administer bioactive agents, control diets, and perform surgical manipulations–procedures that would be unethical or excessively hazardous using humans.

And then this from another web site: http://websites.afar.org/site/PageServer?pagename=IA_expert_Austad

“The question remains, however, whether human aging can ever be fully understood by studying organisms that (1) are not long-lived to begin with and (2) are several hundred generations removed from life in normal wild conditions. It is this question that inspires Steven Austad, a professor at the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies and the Department of Cellular and Structural Biology, University of Texas Health Science Center, to include a variety of non-traditional animals in his research into the aging process.

Dr. Austad participated recently in the Why We Age scientist-luncheon series organized by the American Federation for Aging Research. His presentation at the event focused on what the natural world can teach us about improving health and extending life. Here, Dr. Austad talks to Infoaging in more detail about this theme and what the near future of aging research may reveal.

Infoaging: Due to practical, clinical or regulatory issues, non-primate animal models have become one of the most important tools of aging researchers. What animals are traditionally used in aging research? Why are they chosen?

Dr. Austad: “The main animals that are used include Caenorhabditis elegans, a roundworm found in soil, fruit flies, and mice. They account for more than 95 percent of papers on aging research, mainly because we know so much about their genetics and how they develop. They are also very short-lived, even for the group that they’re in. Caenorhabditis elegans, for example, is short-lived by worm standards. And fruit flies are short-lived by fly standards, and mice are short-lived by mammalian standards. This is important because in a certain type of aging research, scientists follow an animal through its whole lifetime to discover clues about the aging process.”

Interestingly, the prevalence of mice in aging research is really a historical accident. In the 1920s, the fancy mice kept by hobbyists were discovered to get lots and lots of cancers, which made them ideal subjects for cancer research. As they got used more and more in biomedical research, they became extremely well characterized. Eventually, they supplanted rats as the mammal of choice in aging research. Rats were useful because they had bigger organs — bigger hearts and bigger brains — that were easier to manipulate in certain laboratory techniques. We’re now so successful at miniaturization that it’s no longer necessary to start with large tissue samples.”

Of Grave Concern: On Our Dying – As We Live More Fully

Grave Concerns: Revisiting Some Material on Our Dying – As We Live More Fully

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools – The way to dusty death.
- Shakespeare’s Macbeth

I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
- Woody Allen

Oh great…death. WTF? – Just what we need. A buzz-kill blog posting on death (and how ironic to use the word “kill” as a way of saying: I was chilling along, enjoying some Tweets on my iPhone, and checking out Boing Boing via my RSS reader– and then this guy wants to talk about death).

   Yes, that is my point. It is just what we need. But not the kind of presentation and examination of “it” you might be thinking.

For example, I came across this informative news item with the DallasNews.com.

Remembrances: Deaths that shocked and saddened us in ‘08 12/08 By TOM MAURSTAD 

On one hand it was good to see an respectful overview of the “passing” of a selected few in the past year (2008), but on the other hand, it was sad news of those in the “spotlight”, those who were deemed important enough to notice (or that we should care). But at least the reporter had the minimal skill to ponder the bigger picture. Here are some excerpts to make my case (from Maurstad, 2008):

“We wish everyone a happy this, a merry that. Yet beneath, behind and in the midst of all that fizzy, frothy fun, there is a steady, patient presence. Death. We know it, we’ve always known it and always will know it. Death comes for us all: rich and famous, poor and unsung, Republican and Democrat. It’s the ultimate bipartisan movement, building a bridge, we hope, to somewhere.

Every year, there are the big-name deaths, and they tend to come in two varieties. There are those like Heath Ledger’s. They are sharp shocks that make you reflect on what a tightrope this thread of life can be. You wince at the loss of promise. Then there are those like Paul Newman’s. They are more of a slow, steady ache as you mark the chapters in your life by the parts played and realize that the world has, in a small but important and irrevocable way, changed. It is no longer a world in which Paul Newman, Bo Diddley or George Carlin live. But in a way, the big deaths are easy. Think about the deaths of Tim Russert and Charlton Heston. They received so much attention, so much coverage, it was as if you could out-source the experience. The media grieves so you don’t have to.

Celebrities have many roles in life, but in death they serve a single purpose. They are time markers. You see the name and somewhere inside your memory, a button is pushed and a reel of images and feelings unspool. In what’s impossible not to recognize as a gathering trend, 2008 was a year full of such time markers for Boomers.

Big or small, world-famous or personally important, we take a moment as we leave the old and step into the new, to say goodbye and thank you.”

Ok, that was refreshingly different in a news story (usually devoid of thinking and reflection) to pay tribute to not only highlighted names, but to wax poetic (somewhat) on Death. But still – the catalyst and the focus was on the recognizable few. And indeed, you can learn more of the dead people in 2008 by going to the “Dead People Server” at http://dpsinfo.com/dps/2008.html. But what about the rest of us? I mean, not yet, but what if…you know….me or you, were to move on….you know…die? Would we get a mention at the end of the year? Probably not. Yes, there are the obituaries, but more on that later (read on).

Or instead of not making “the list” we could simply get lost in the shuffle and aggregate anonymity of the statistical tables (Nostalgia alert!: I always knew the TV show The Prisoner {from the 60’s} would come back to haunt me- “You are Number Six” {and then Patrick McGoohan says, “I am not a number — I am a free man!”)

that we can count on (pardon the pun) from the CDC and other Kafka-like bean counters. For example, here is some recent information (released on June 11, 2008, but notice that data has some lag effect and is presented in the usual mechanical soulless manner, But hey! that is what they do) for you on Death,

U.S. Mortality Drops Sharply in 2006, Latest Data Show.

Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2006. NVSR Volume 56, Number 16. 52 pp.
Age-adjusted death rates in the United States declined significantly between 2005 and 2006 and life expectancy hit another record high, according to preliminary death statistics released today by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.The 2006 age-adjusted death rate fell to 776.4 deaths per 100,000 population from 799 deaths per 100,000 in 2005. In addition, death rates for 8 of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States all dropped significantly in 2006, including a very sharp drop in mortality from influenza and pneumonia.

 Other findings in the report (just a few: I don’t want to bore you to “death”)

Between 2005 and 2006, the largest decline in age-adjusted death rates occurred for influenza and pneumonia, with a 12.8 percent decline. Other declines were observed for chronic lower respiratory diseases (6.5 percent), stroke (6.4 percent), heart disease (5.5 percent), diabetes (5.3 percent), hypertension (5 percent), chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (3.3 percent), suicide (2.8 percent), septicemia or blood poisoning (2.7 percent), cancer (1.6 percent) and accidents (1.5 percent).

 Alzheimer’s disease passed diabetes to become the sixth leading cause of death in the United States in 2006. An estimated 72,914 Americans died of Alzheimer’s disease in 2006. However, the preliminary age-adjusted death rate from Alzheimer’s did not change significantly between 2005 and 2006.

 Well, between the celebrities passing on and the mind-numbing numbers, what else is there to think about? In fact, I don’t want to think about it. Life is too short to worry about d…., you know, why bring it up? That thing… I’m too busy. Besides I can get my quota with watching Dexter on Showtime

or playing Left 4 Dead on my PC…wait, what are you doing?….

            Boom!

            This is the moment where we bring in the equivalent of the wake-up notice, only more loudly, and with more attention getting…like Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) in Pulp Fiction,

“I’m sorry, did I break your concentration? I didn’t mean to do that. Please, continue, you were saying something about best intentions. What’s the matter? Oh, you were finished. Well then, allow me to retort….”

            And in the spirit of rogue scholarship on aging, I shall.

From Jules to Jaques…as in lines from the famous ‘all the world’s a stage’ speech in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, and the beginning of my retort that would should break our concentration on just drifting along (comfortably numb) – and then it is there – and here, and now. And are we ready? Not for death, but for the complete realization, the sheer terror or knowing –“This is this, there is no more in this life. It is over. And only now do I really know that…wow, why didn’t someone tell me?”

      JAQUES:

                All the world’s a stage,
                And all the men and women merely players:
                They have their exits and their entrances;
                And one man in his time plays many parts,
               ….But at the end – not much but, “mere oblivion,
               Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

Really? Mere oblivion? And all of it gone? But I didn’t get that text message. Maybe the server was down that day and my inbox was frozen. Maybe I didn’t like Willy boy’s stuff anyway.  Okay, fair enough. But let us take a look at a few cultural venues (and a few representative examples) where there have been attempts to send the message of your (and mine) finitude with varying degrees of success.

Movies:
Death Takes a Holiday (1934)- or later as - 
Meet Joe Black (1998) {Brad Pitt as “death”; and then as a reverse-aging being in “Benjamin Button” – gotta give credit to Hollywood for making both topics more interesting with the star power; but what’s next? Angelina Jolie as a hip Geriatrician? (hmmm, that could work; you heard it here first!}

The Sixth Sense (1999) (“I see dead people”) by M. Night Shyamalan with the trademark twist ending.

Now you may want to me bring up Death Proof by Quentin Tarantino and render some philosophical nuance to that movie (segment); but I say there is none. Except some good lines by Stuntman Mike (“Ahhh, yeah, I know. Sorry. It’s my mom’s car”) and Earl McGraw (“Shit. Two tons of metal, 200 miles an hour, flesh and bone and plain old Newton… they all princess died”).

Death Proof

But for me – it was in the movie Baraka (now on Blue Ray DVD) with the haunting voice of Lisa Gerrard (Dead Can Dance) and the haunting images of burnt bodies of died near the Ganges (India) that has seared into me the reality of life – served with a bucket of cold water – ah finitude – now I see.

  

And speaking of Music:

Knockin on Heaven’s Door, Bob Dylan  {sort of Kubler-Ross stage theory set to music)

And When I Die, Blood, Sweat, and Tears {a ditty with some great lines}

Don’t Fear the Reaper, Blue Oyster Cult {little did I know in the 70s – I thought it was a song to impress the babes – Love of two is one}

Don't Fear the Reaper

Dust in the Wind – Kansas {my all time favorite existential song – oh, the nullity of it all}

And then the uber-group in relation to our topic: Dead Can Dance
(think: “I am Stretched on Your Grave” from Toward the Within – and I challenge you to listen to the voice of Lisa Gerrard on the same album with the song Cantara and not know the spine-tingling sensation of something other-worldly – ethereality).

And speaking of other-worldy-ness and
“can I break your concentration” – Books:

Kubler-Ross is the original on this matter as least on a mass readership scale and I can still remember writing DABDA on my hand with a ball-point pen as a “cheat” to help me with the exam question…What are the stages of dying? And Nuland’s book was a spectacular example of the cold scalpel opening up the clinical/medical process of what is going on when I am dying -

On Death and Dying By Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D., Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Published by Sagebrush Education Resources, 196

Tibetan Book of the Dead - The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Or, The After-death Experiences on the Bardo Plane, According to Lāma Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s English Rendering By Karma-gliṅ-pa, W. T. Evans-Wentz Compiled by W. T. Evans-Wentz Contributor Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Published by Oxford University Press US, 2000

The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker Published by Simon and Schuster, 1997

 The American Way of Death Revisited By Jessica Mitford Contributor Jessica Mitford Published by Vintage Books, 1998

 Remember Me: A Lively Tour of the New American Way of Death - By Lisa Takeuchi Cullen - Published by HarperCollins, 2007

How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter By Sherwin B. Nuland Published by Vintage Books, 1995

And remember when I mentioned about paying attention to the NOTICE of people who are now dead (at least for most of us – you know regular folk – in the OBITS –here is a book for you:

The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries By Marilyn Johnson Published by HarperCollins, 2006

 You still can’t remember the messages of why it is good to pay attention to death?

What about some Paintings?

The Triumph of Death Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1562 Museo del Prado, Madrid

A little too gruesome and horrific?

Okay try my favorite – Isle of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin. Böcklin painted five versions of Isle of the Dead from 1880 to 1886. Pick anyone you like – and then sit and take it in – and then you may feel, taste, smell, hear, and see the movement toward the end point – alone.

What about some Cultural perspectives?

Try to learn more about – The Día de los Muertos Season – or read Death and the Idea of Mexico by Claudio Lomnitz The MIT press (2005) and compare to the US (general) culture:

 

 

Death and the Idea of Mexico is the first social, cultural, and political history of death in a nation that has made death its tutelary sign. Examining the history of death and of the death sign from sixteenth-century holocaust to contemporary Mexican-American identity politics, anthropologist Claudio Lomnitz’s innovative study marks a turning point in understanding Mexico’s rich and unique use of death imagery. Unlike contemporary Europeans and Americans, whose denial of death permeates their cultures, the Mexican people display and cultivate a jovial familiarity with death. This intimacy with death has become the cornerstone of Mexico’s national identity.

Finally, I have two recommendations for you. Although, both of these books deal with our topic – the approach and the spark for contemplation are quite different.

Japanese Death Poems (compiled by Yoel Hoffman. Tuttle Publishing (1986). My copy has many pages dog-eared and the haiku verse is better than having you break your concentration with the temper of Jules (while eating a Big Kahuna Burger).

May I share one that I like?

Gesshu Soko (died at age of 79) -

Inhale, exhale
Forward, back
Living, dying:
     Arrows, let flown each to each
      Meet midway and slice
      The void in aimless flight –
      Thus I return to the source.

Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters

All I can say is that you should a copy of this have this nearby – read and learn – and live from it. It is our American version of Death as a teacher – and a far more poetic way to convey meaning beyond the grave – than our standard obituaries. Now, I would like to share one with you. But it you can try to make this a multi-media experience. Perhaps some synthesesia.

Bring forward for your visual review a copy of Arnold Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead.
            Play Sergei Rachmaninov’s – The Isle of the Dead (EMI Classics)
           And read this:

            Widow McFarlane

I was the Widow McFarlane,
Weaver of carpets for all the village.
And I pity you still at the loom of life,
You are singing to the shuttle
And lovingly watching the work of your hands,
If you reach the date of hate, of terrible truth.
For the cloth of life is woven, you know,
To a pattern hidden under the loom –
A pattern you never see!
And you weave high-hearted, singing, singing,
You guard the threads of love and friendship
For noble figures in gold and purple.
And long after other eyes can see
You have woven a moon-strip of cloth,
You laugh in your strength, for Hope o’erlays it
With shapes of love and beauty.
The loom stops short! The patterns out!
You’re alone in the room! You have woven a shroud!
And hate of it lays you in it!

———————————————–

            And here is the kicker -

            Weaving – loom – threads – shroud – pattern. I appreciate what Schopenhauer meant (now – more than ever) about the second half of life (see my previous blog posting on A quantum of tranquility…) - 

We try to make a pattern from the cloth of our life with Death as the master teacher nearby –
Have you begun to weave yet?

                Thanks, Scott D. Wright

The 2008 Rogue Scholarship on Aging – Cicero Book Awards (and they go to…)

The 2008 Rogue Scholarship on Aging – Cicero Book Awards

Books that have generated both heat and light on the topic of aging -
scholarly and yet just enough roguishness to challenge the received view and stir up the status quo - 

Non-Fiction

* Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging In Our Lifetime.
by Aubrey de Grey and Michael Rae (St. Martin’s Press) ISBN = 978-0312367077 (paperback -2008)

* for analysis and critique scroll down (thanks)

Fiction

Love and the Incredibly Old Man
by Lee Siegel (University of Chicago Press) ISBN = 978-0-226-75705-6

Tampico
by Toby Olson (University of Texas Press) ISBN = 978-0-292-71827-2 

Notables for 2008

Can’t Remember What I Forgot: The Good News From the Front Lines of Memory Research
by Sue Halpern (Harmony Books) ISBN = 978-0-307-40674

The Longevity Revolution: The Benefits and Challenges of Living a Long Life
by Robert N. Butler, M.D. (PublicAffairs) ISBN = 978-1-58648-553-5

Nothing to Be Frightened Of
by Julian Barnes  (Knopf) ISBN = 978-0224085236

The Art of Aging: A Doctor’s Prescription for Well-Being
by Sherwin Nuland  (Random House) ISBN = 978-1400064779

* Note: The hardback version of this title was released in 2007- the paperback in 2008. I have it as the best in non-fiction this year due to its provocative premise that “the key biomedical technology required to eliminate age-derived debilitation and death entirely – technology that would not only slow but periodically reverse age-related physiological decay, leaving us biologically young into an indefinite future – is now within reach.” This is without doubt one of the most scholarly and intriguing books on the topic on aging – in many years. “Ending Aging” is full of roguishness and I admire Dr. Aubrey de Grey’s passion and laser-focused dedication to the topic. I had a chance to hear him speak this past year at the University of Utah (Eccles Institute of Human Genetics) and he is quite the character – and he delivers the message with authority and hyper-confidence. The book has raised hell – and the level of discussion on research on aging to a greater level of heat and light.

            Yet….as I recognize “Ending Aging” as the premier example of rogue scholarship on aging – there are critiques and counterarguments to consider, as well as other benchmark studies to factor into the topic. I for one find more affinity with the theoretical perspectives of Rose (see below). I like the scientific fireworks between SENS and SENSE.

            May I suggest the following articles for a well-rounded perspective?

            Carnes, B. & Olshansky, S. J. (2007). A realist view of aging, mortality, and future longevity. Population and Development Review, 33(2), 367-                       381.
            Clegg, B. (2008). Upgrade me: Our amazing journey to human 2.0. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

            Perls et al (2007). Survival of parents and siblings of supercentenarians. Journal of Gerontology, 62A(9), 1028-1034.
            Rose, M.R. (2008). Making SENSE: Strategies for engineering negligible senescence evolutionarily. Rejuvenation Research, 11(2), 527-534.
            Terry et al (2008). Disentangling the roles of disability and morbidity in survival to exceptional old age. Archives of Internal Medicine, 168(3),                        279-282.

         Thanks – Scott D. Wright