When do you know you're old enough to die?
April 9, 2018 2:24 PM Subscribe
(The Guardian) When do you know you're old enough to die? [ Barbara] Ehrenreich – who holds a PhD in cellular immunology – casts a skeptical, sometimes witty, and scientifically rigorous eye over the beliefs we hold that we think will give us longevity. She targets the medical examinations, screenings and tests we’re subjected to in older age as well as the multibillion-dollar “wellness” industry, the cult of mindfulness and food fads. These all give us the illusion that we are in control of our bodies...“I’m sorry, I’m not going out of this life without butter on my bread. I’ve had so much grief from people about butter. The most important thing is that food tastes good enough to eat it. I like a glass of wine or a bloody mary, too.”
Barbara Ehrenreich previously on Metafilter:
Smile! You've got cancer
The selfish side of gratitude
How corporations and local governments use the poor as piggy banks
Barbara Ehrenreich previously on Metafilter:
Smile! You've got cancer
The selfish side of gratitude
How corporations and local governments use the poor as piggy banks
#teambutter
posted by supermedusa at 3:08 PM on April 9, 2018 [13 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 3:08 PM on April 9, 2018 [13 favorites]
Patrick Swayze put it a bit better in his last year when he battled cancer.
He still put himself through the conventional rigamarole, but explained that he was not bothering with alternative stuff because there's so much time he had left, and there's a conflict between spending it fighting to live and spending it LIVING.
posted by ocschwar at 3:09 PM on April 9, 2018 [5 favorites]
He still put himself through the conventional rigamarole, but explained that he was not bothering with alternative stuff because there's so much time he had left, and there's a conflict between spending it fighting to live and spending it LIVING.
posted by ocschwar at 3:09 PM on April 9, 2018 [5 favorites]
I tend to agree but you have to be honest with yourself. Life is worth living without, say, eating a box of Pop Tarts for a snack every day. However, people who already basically live very healthy lifestyles seem to get pulled in to this weird purity trip about their diet.
posted by thelonius at 3:09 PM on April 9, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 3:09 PM on April 9, 2018 [9 favorites]
I find any perspective that engages forthrightly and with humor about our mortality SO so refreshing.
posted by spindrifter at 3:21 PM on April 9, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by spindrifter at 3:21 PM on April 9, 2018 [10 favorites]
Luckiest thing I ever had happen was nearly dying at 10. Like, "vaguely remembering the priest mumbling over me," nearly dying. Got me over the whole realization that I *am* going to die, and that it's not something to dread. There were some problems when I conflated that with "not caring if I die" in my 20s.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:34 PM on April 9, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:34 PM on April 9, 2018 [10 favorites]
I'd be fine going today, if not, within the next 5 years. I don't care to see the latter half of 30s, if I haven't done what I want to in life by then, I surely never will and the world doesn't need another useless hanger-on for 30+ more years after that.
posted by GoblinHoney at 3:40 PM on April 9, 2018
posted by GoblinHoney at 3:40 PM on April 9, 2018
The recent and little-seen movie Annihilation has a character making the very useful distinction between suicide and self-destruction. Very few of us, she points out, go the first route, but almost all of us engage in the second.
I contend that life is a self-paced route to self-destruction. We almost all have the option of either acquiring a terminal overdose of morphine or the like and going out after a few minutes of maximum serotonin/dopamine or else living on meager rations of yogurt and granola and making it past the century mark. Almost every one of us chooses some middle path.
I went through a major health crisis in my early twenties and I admit that my mortality was much on my mind at the time, flavoured with a sense of, as the song went, “Is That All There Is?” A few decades later I am much more at ease with thepossibility inevitability, partly because the last few decades have all seemed like bonus time to me.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:40 PM on April 9, 2018 [6 favorites]
I contend that life is a self-paced route to self-destruction. We almost all have the option of either acquiring a terminal overdose of morphine or the like and going out after a few minutes of maximum serotonin/dopamine or else living on meager rations of yogurt and granola and making it past the century mark. Almost every one of us chooses some middle path.
I went through a major health crisis in my early twenties and I admit that my mortality was much on my mind at the time, flavoured with a sense of, as the song went, “Is That All There Is?” A few decades later I am much more at ease with the
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:40 PM on April 9, 2018 [6 favorites]
Edit window missed, but here is what else I wanted to add:
I do find her perspective very healthy, I've often "joked" about how if I get to a certain old age, I'd go nuts and try some of the stuff I've otherwise avoided trying. Like, if I get to 70, it's probably fair to give heroin a shot, clearly it's a great experience and many people dedicate their lives to it -- I want to feel what all the fuss is about. At the very least, there should come a point where you don't even have to give the show of being healthy or prolonging your life. In general we put too much stress on living longer and longer but dying and having an end is an extremely important part of life, not something we should invest a ton of resources into avoiding for as long as possible. Especially once our resource and environmental issues catch up to us in a way 1st world people actually have to feel and deal with --there will have to be social pressure for those who have entered the sunset years to let the sun set.
posted by GoblinHoney at 3:46 PM on April 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
I do find her perspective very healthy, I've often "joked" about how if I get to a certain old age, I'd go nuts and try some of the stuff I've otherwise avoided trying. Like, if I get to 70, it's probably fair to give heroin a shot, clearly it's a great experience and many people dedicate their lives to it -- I want to feel what all the fuss is about. At the very least, there should come a point where you don't even have to give the show of being healthy or prolonging your life. In general we put too much stress on living longer and longer but dying and having an end is an extremely important part of life, not something we should invest a ton of resources into avoiding for as long as possible. Especially once our resource and environmental issues catch up to us in a way 1st world people actually have to feel and deal with --there will have to be social pressure for those who have entered the sunset years to let the sun set.
posted by GoblinHoney at 3:46 PM on April 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
Hm, the article made me tear up a bit. But when all's said and done, it is strictly about those of advanced age. Having seen my father die horribly of cancer in his late forties, if there were some kind of diet or whatever that was actually 100% guaranteed to prevent such a fate, I would probably glom on to it in a heartbeat. Life is more than delicious snacks. For the guarantee of living to read, to listen to music, to laugh with friends, to watch lizards basking in the sun, to exist as a sentient being, whatever selfhood really means -- I don't think it would be too much of a sacrifice to do tedious workouts or whatnot.
The problem of course is that it isn't 100% guaranteed, not even remotely close. You'd have had to look hard to find someone more naturally enthusiastic for "healthy lifestyle" type things than my father for instance, who placed much importance on exercise and simple eating and going to bed and all that, and even had the whole positive-attitude thing down pat. Didn't help him live to see his fifties, did it now.
posted by inconstant at 3:47 PM on April 9, 2018 [20 favorites]
The problem of course is that it isn't 100% guaranteed, not even remotely close. You'd have had to look hard to find someone more naturally enthusiastic for "healthy lifestyle" type things than my father for instance, who placed much importance on exercise and simple eating and going to bed and all that, and even had the whole positive-attitude thing down pat. Didn't help him live to see his fifties, did it now.
posted by inconstant at 3:47 PM on April 9, 2018 [20 favorites]
I don’t understand the people who say, ‘I’m so relieved my workout is over, it was torture, but I did it.’
Oh, I totally understand them. I've tried - oh how I've tried - for months and even years at a time to get to where a workout was no longer a sheer drudgery of aches and sweat and burning lungs, and I never ever did. It didn't make me feel good, I didn't feel better afterwards or the next day. That's been uniformly true since I was a (reasonably healthy) teenager. And dear lord, the running craze in the 70's...all I ever got out of that was shin splints.
I finally decided screw it and dropped my gym membership. I do do some yoga, which helps keep my back and legs pain-free, and I enjoy things like walking and hiking that give me some exercise along with the enjoyment of being outdoors. But "workouts"? Feh.
#teambutter
Same. (within reason, of course...)
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:49 PM on April 9, 2018 [8 favorites]
Oh, I totally understand them. I've tried - oh how I've tried - for months and even years at a time to get to where a workout was no longer a sheer drudgery of aches and sweat and burning lungs, and I never ever did. It didn't make me feel good, I didn't feel better afterwards or the next day. That's been uniformly true since I was a (reasonably healthy) teenager. And dear lord, the running craze in the 70's...all I ever got out of that was shin splints.
I finally decided screw it and dropped my gym membership. I do do some yoga, which helps keep my back and legs pain-free, and I enjoy things like walking and hiking that give me some exercise along with the enjoyment of being outdoors. But "workouts"? Feh.
#teambutter
Same. (within reason, of course...)
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:49 PM on April 9, 2018 [8 favorites]
Also, if/when I get to the point that I can no longer enjoy life, what's the point in prolonging it by doing things (such as a severely restricted diet, massive medications or medical care, etc.) I also don't enjoy? To hell with it, I'm out.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:53 PM on April 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:53 PM on April 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
The impetus that keeps us eating healthily in youth preserves it momentum through old age, when it's no longer necessary. To be effective, good habits take the kind of commitment that doesn't just stop when circumstances change.
I had a friend who quit drinking in his 40s, but told everybody that he was going to start up again the day he turned 65 and retired. But that day came and went, and he is still not drinking. He said, "It's just as hard to quit for one year as it is to quit for 100 years. I'm past the hard part. I wouldn't even think about drinking, if you didn't keep bringing it up."
posted by Modest House at 3:58 PM on April 9, 2018 [12 favorites]
I had a friend who quit drinking in his 40s, but told everybody that he was going to start up again the day he turned 65 and retired. But that day came and went, and he is still not drinking. He said, "It's just as hard to quit for one year as it is to quit for 100 years. I'm past the hard part. I wouldn't even think about drinking, if you didn't keep bringing it up."
posted by Modest House at 3:58 PM on April 9, 2018 [12 favorites]
I used to have a friendly argument with friend of mine about living a long life. He was all about doing whatever it took to live as long as possible. He was genuinely excited about medical and technology advancements that could possibly extend life spans to 120 years or more. His only real reason for living forever was “Just think of the things you’ll see!” Yeah...no thank you.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:15 PM on April 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 4:15 PM on April 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
From the article:
“The last time I had to get a new primary care doctor I told her straight out: ‘I will come to you if I have a problem, but do not go looking for problems.’”
my mom's well into her 80s, and recently got a new doctor because the old one moved away. She (the new doctor) immediately found things confusing, because so much of what the previous doctor had been focused on was test results and whatnot that ran contrary to the fact that my mom was overall feeling pretty good (for someone her age). As new doc put it to my mom: "I've found it best to treat symptoms, not lab results."
"So what you're saying," said mom, "Is your way I might just drop dead one day while I'm out for a walk, but the old way I'd end up withering away in a home."
The doctor nodded. "Prolonging life too often really means prolonging death."
posted by philip-random at 4:42 PM on April 9, 2018 [39 favorites]
“The last time I had to get a new primary care doctor I told her straight out: ‘I will come to you if I have a problem, but do not go looking for problems.’”
my mom's well into her 80s, and recently got a new doctor because the old one moved away. She (the new doctor) immediately found things confusing, because so much of what the previous doctor had been focused on was test results and whatnot that ran contrary to the fact that my mom was overall feeling pretty good (for someone her age). As new doc put it to my mom: "I've found it best to treat symptoms, not lab results."
"So what you're saying," said mom, "Is your way I might just drop dead one day while I'm out for a walk, but the old way I'd end up withering away in a home."
The doctor nodded. "Prolonging life too often really means prolonging death."
posted by philip-random at 4:42 PM on April 9, 2018 [39 favorites]
> Like, if I get to 70, it's probably fair to give heroin a shot, clearly it's a great experience and many people dedicate their lives to it -- I want to feel what all the fuss is about.
I wonder how you'll feel about it when you're 70. I have a close friend who's 84, and she definitely isn't ready to give up and live "like an old person," as she would put it. If I suddenly found myself to be age 70 I would probably be miserable, but for the most part it's such a gradual transition.
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:46 PM on April 9, 2018 [6 favorites]
I wonder how you'll feel about it when you're 70. I have a close friend who's 84, and she definitely isn't ready to give up and live "like an old person," as she would put it. If I suddenly found myself to be age 70 I would probably be miserable, but for the most part it's such a gradual transition.
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:46 PM on April 9, 2018 [6 favorites]
Not that long after "discovering" the internet I found The Death Clock. Probably from The Rough Guide To The Internet or a link suggested in a newspaper trying to be hip with that there Information Superhighway or something, certainly not via a 1-1 human interaction irl or online. It told me I'd die on Sat(?) 1st Jan 2050. Which is at least the latter half of the century. Just.
A good decade later the site came up in conversation avec an human friend, possibly in relation to his smoking habit or else our mutualPeter drinkage. Dunno what if anything it told him, but revisiting it after all those years produced the exact same answer for me. First of January 2050. Either its algorithm is a bit fishy or I'm proper doomed to die barely into the back half of the century where the shadows lie.
Refuse to retake the test now for fear of what it might say. Third time is the charm and/or enemy action.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 5:06 PM on April 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
A good decade later the site came up in conversation avec an human friend, possibly in relation to his smoking habit or else our mutual
Refuse to retake the test now for fear of what it might say. Third time is the charm and/or enemy action.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 5:06 PM on April 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
I literally this very moment realised that just as 2000 wasn't the actual start of the millennium, the year 20-bastard-50 isn't actually the start of the 00's second half-century. Colour me denied!
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 5:10 PM on April 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 5:10 PM on April 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
I remember having a conversation with my elderly next door neighbour some years ago (she was late 70s at the time and very active and vibrant) about how all of her friends were constant battling one illness or another and going through constant rounds of chemotherapy/surgery etc.
I made a remark that when I hit my mid 80s and was in ill health, I'm pretty sure I'd be ready to go by then. She looked at me very pointedly and said, let's just wait til you're that age, and then see if you're happy to die. Just because you're old, it doesn't mean that you want to die anymore than anyone else does. I immediately felt terrible (and I still do.)
But. That was a while ago and since then, my dear friend's health has gone down drastically. She's in a huge amount of pain from sciatica and has been plagued by various health issues that are really just the result of her body breaking down with age. She's in surgery tomorrow actually, for her back and I know her quality of life is terrible. She is now at the point her friends were, in and out of the doctors.
I help when I can but there's only so much I and modern medicine can do. While I hope she lives forever, I look back at that conversation we had years ago and I wonder if she still feels the same way. Getting old sucks.
posted by Jubey at 5:21 PM on April 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
I made a remark that when I hit my mid 80s and was in ill health, I'm pretty sure I'd be ready to go by then. She looked at me very pointedly and said, let's just wait til you're that age, and then see if you're happy to die. Just because you're old, it doesn't mean that you want to die anymore than anyone else does. I immediately felt terrible (and I still do.)
But. That was a while ago and since then, my dear friend's health has gone down drastically. She's in a huge amount of pain from sciatica and has been plagued by various health issues that are really just the result of her body breaking down with age. She's in surgery tomorrow actually, for her back and I know her quality of life is terrible. She is now at the point her friends were, in and out of the doctors.
I help when I can but there's only so much I and modern medicine can do. While I hope she lives forever, I look back at that conversation we had years ago and I wonder if she still feels the same way. Getting old sucks.
posted by Jubey at 5:21 PM on April 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
You'd have had to look hard to find someone more naturally enthusiastic for "healthy lifestyle" type things than my father for instance, who placed much importance on exercise and simple eating and going to bed and all that, and even had the whole positive-attitude thing down pat. Didn't help him live to see his fifties, did it now.
Same for my father, although he made it just barely into his 50s. When my yoga-obsessed, chakra-cleansing, ultra-fit mother was diagnosed with cancer several years later, I took her to the grocery store and tossed some nacho dip into the cart.
"Oh, no, you know I never eat that stuff!" she said.
"Oh yeah? And where'd it get ya?"
"..."
Reader, we ate many nachos that night, but my mother recovered from her cancer, even so. #teambutter
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 5:23 PM on April 9, 2018 [26 favorites]
Same for my father, although he made it just barely into his 50s. When my yoga-obsessed, chakra-cleansing, ultra-fit mother was diagnosed with cancer several years later, I took her to the grocery store and tossed some nacho dip into the cart.
"Oh, no, you know I never eat that stuff!" she said.
"Oh yeah? And where'd it get ya?"
"..."
Reader, we ate many nachos that night, but my mother recovered from her cancer, even so. #teambutter
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 5:23 PM on April 9, 2018 [26 favorites]
I'd be fine going today, if not, within the next 5 years. I don't care to see the latter half of 30s, if I haven't done what I want to in life by then, I surely never will and the world doesn't need another useless hanger-on for 30+ more years after that.
Wow. I’m 46 and I can’t inagine if I had died at 35. There are so many things I hadn’t done. I’m practically not even the same person I was at 35. I fully expect to be an almost different person by 55. I don’t want to ever not be able to function on my own, (or mostly on my own) but hell yeah, I want to hang on for 30 more years. There are gonna be some damn good ones in there.
posted by greermahoney at 5:27 PM on April 9, 2018 [31 favorites]
Wow. I’m 46 and I can’t inagine if I had died at 35. There are so many things I hadn’t done. I’m practically not even the same person I was at 35. I fully expect to be an almost different person by 55. I don’t want to ever not be able to function on my own, (or mostly on my own) but hell yeah, I want to hang on for 30 more years. There are gonna be some damn good ones in there.
posted by greermahoney at 5:27 PM on April 9, 2018 [31 favorites]
I hate getting older, but it's better than the alternative.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 5:47 PM on April 9, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 5:47 PM on April 9, 2018 [5 favorites]
This has been a major family topic this year after my aunt suddenly died of a heart attack at 57. It was less than a year after my step-grandfather survived a heart attack after years of being the pinnacle of healthy living.
They see the disparate outcomes as evidence that we have to really take our health seriously and have a moral obligation to live as healthy as possible.
But she apparently had symptoms more than 24 hours before going to the doctor. She smoked more than she should, she weighed more than she should. She should have been monitored as a person at-risk. Educated about the warning signs, especially as they differ from the typical symptoms male patients report.
And I realize that I'm cribbing a bit more from Barbara Ehrenreich's words than the article ostensibly about it. But it seems the same conversation, just that hers is at the end of a fairly long life, realizing that her choices had far less impact on her health than we'd like to believe they do.
The moralizing does more to obscure and cement health outcomes than it actually helps.
posted by politikitty at 5:50 PM on April 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
They see the disparate outcomes as evidence that we have to really take our health seriously and have a moral obligation to live as healthy as possible.
But she apparently had symptoms more than 24 hours before going to the doctor. She smoked more than she should, she weighed more than she should. She should have been monitored as a person at-risk. Educated about the warning signs, especially as they differ from the typical symptoms male patients report.
And I realize that I'm cribbing a bit more from Barbara Ehrenreich's words than the article ostensibly about it. But it seems the same conversation, just that hers is at the end of a fairly long life, realizing that her choices had far less impact on her health than we'd like to believe they do.
The moralizing does more to obscure and cement health outcomes than it actually helps.
posted by politikitty at 5:50 PM on April 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Old is always 15 years older than you happen to be at the time.
posted by yhbc at 7:29 PM on April 9, 2018 [19 favorites]
posted by yhbc at 7:29 PM on April 9, 2018 [19 favorites]
Some of the comments above have picked up Ehrenreich's refusal to give up butter as a principled refusal to do what's healthy, but the paragraph right below Ehrenreich's dedication to butter and cocktails reads as follows
The science is incontrovertible that exercise, proper nutrition, and adequate rest improves the quality of life for humans. No, you cannot stave off death forever and some people will die young due to disease regardless.
Still, doctors are pretty unified in expressing that the outcomes of disease and pathology are much better when given otherwise healthy and healthful persons. Rejecting the effort to eat healthily and exercise adequately as so much rigamarole that makes life not worth living is to deny science and to deny the disclosures of the very person (Ms. Ehrenreich) who refuses to do without butter in the first place.
It seems to me that more than advocating for drinking wine and eating butter when you're ready to accept dying, Ms. Ehrenreich is talking about a sense of understanding that one's own death is not something to be feared and that it needn't be interpreted as something tragic. As I get deeper into my middle age, I hope I can feel more concretely what Ehrenreich does when she says she knows that she is old enough to die.
This sense of being in the present and thankful for what still remains within our grasp is something that "Want to be Happy? Think Like an Old Person" covers and the descriptions of the elderly people in that article seem closer to Ehrenreich's mood in the linked peace than let's eat poorly because we're gonna die anyway.
posted by mistersquid at 8:04 PM on April 9, 2018 [7 favorites]
Yet despite her thoughts on the “wellness” industry with its expensive health clubs [. . .], Ehrenreich won’t be giving up the gym anytime soon. She works out most days because she enjoys cardio and weight training and “lots of stretching”, not because it might make her live longer.Selectively highlighting Ehrenreich's decision to eat and drink foods that are pleasurable if somewhat deleterious without noting that she has an ongoing regimen of exercise is really misrepresenting Ehrenreich's commitment to living well.
The science is incontrovertible that exercise, proper nutrition, and adequate rest improves the quality of life for humans. No, you cannot stave off death forever and some people will die young due to disease regardless.
Still, doctors are pretty unified in expressing that the outcomes of disease and pathology are much better when given otherwise healthy and healthful persons. Rejecting the effort to eat healthily and exercise adequately as so much rigamarole that makes life not worth living is to deny science and to deny the disclosures of the very person (Ms. Ehrenreich) who refuses to do without butter in the first place.
It seems to me that more than advocating for drinking wine and eating butter when you're ready to accept dying, Ms. Ehrenreich is talking about a sense of understanding that one's own death is not something to be feared and that it needn't be interpreted as something tragic. As I get deeper into my middle age, I hope I can feel more concretely what Ehrenreich does when she says she knows that she is old enough to die.
This sense of being in the present and thankful for what still remains within our grasp is something that "Want to be Happy? Think Like an Old Person" covers and the descriptions of the elderly people in that article seem closer to Ehrenreich's mood in the linked peace than let's eat poorly because we're gonna die anyway.
posted by mistersquid at 8:04 PM on April 9, 2018 [7 favorites]
Maybe read her own words. She is very concerned about the way we make moral judgements about unhealthy decisions. Feeling better after working out is the only reward worth holding onto, not the doctors approval. Feeling better on a healthy diet is the only reward worth holding onto, not a promise for a longer life.
If it doesn’t do that, it’s okay to do the thing that gets you through the day.
posted by politikitty at 8:59 PM on April 9, 2018 [14 favorites]
If it doesn’t do that, it’s okay to do the thing that gets you through the day.
posted by politikitty at 8:59 PM on April 9, 2018 [14 favorites]
This has a lot of resonance for me because of my 86-year-old father, who is in aged care with multiple health issues including dementia and diabetes. Another relative complains that my brother and I serve Dad the same meal as everyone else at Christmas lunch - including turkey, ham, roast veggies and gravy, pudding and a glass of wine. She would prefer we served him a different meal, low-fat and no sugar or alcohol. My argument is that he's an old man, he has very few joys in life any more, I've checked the alcohol won't interfere with his meds, and he wants to eat what he sees everyone else enjoying. I'm not going to deprive him of that occasional pleasure even if it guaranteed him an extra week or month of life (which, of course, it doesn't).
posted by andraste at 9:52 PM on April 9, 2018 [19 favorites]
posted by andraste at 9:52 PM on April 9, 2018 [19 favorites]
in my dad's final days, I noticed him eating less and less of the meals they were serving (he was in a home) ... but he always ate the dessert. He had some dementia and was overall much weakened in the wake of open heart surgery that ultimately came too late. But he still knew what he liked, and he kept on liking it right up till the end.
posted by philip-random at 11:03 PM on April 9, 2018 [13 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 11:03 PM on April 9, 2018 [13 favorites]
> philip-random:
"But he still knew what he liked, and he kept on liking it right up till the end."
That's a pretty fine exit line.
posted by chavenet at 2:41 AM on April 10, 2018 [11 favorites]
"But he still knew what he liked, and he kept on liking it right up till the end."
That's a pretty fine exit line.
posted by chavenet at 2:41 AM on April 10, 2018 [11 favorites]
I don't care to see the latter half of 30s, if I haven't done what I want to in life by then, I surely never will
Whaaaaat?? Since turning 40 I have seen my first collection of poetry published, produced/co-written a singer/songwriter's album and wrote/performed/produced a solo album. When I was in my mid-30s I had almost given up on poetry and didn't play music at all. Now I have 3 music projects going simultaneously, have poetry book 2 written & submitted out to various publishers, and am finally working on the novel that's been kicking about in my head for the past decade. I get about 10 poems in literary magazines every year, which never happened in my 30s. I was 42 when I married Mrs. eustacescrubb and she's pretty goddamned great, let me tell you.
I don’t understand the people who say, ‘I’m so relieved my workout is over, it was torture, but I did it.’
I love running and cycling outside. I get excited to wake up early and do either. But I don't get the same excitement for an hour on the elliptical, which I've had to resort to while I wait for a sprained tendon to heal.
Also I love butter.
posted by eustacescrubb at 4:20 AM on April 10, 2018 [13 favorites]
Whaaaaat?? Since turning 40 I have seen my first collection of poetry published, produced/co-written a singer/songwriter's album and wrote/performed/produced a solo album. When I was in my mid-30s I had almost given up on poetry and didn't play music at all. Now I have 3 music projects going simultaneously, have poetry book 2 written & submitted out to various publishers, and am finally working on the novel that's been kicking about in my head for the past decade. I get about 10 poems in literary magazines every year, which never happened in my 30s. I was 42 when I married Mrs. eustacescrubb and she's pretty goddamned great, let me tell you.
I don’t understand the people who say, ‘I’m so relieved my workout is over, it was torture, but I did it.’
I love running and cycling outside. I get excited to wake up early and do either. But I don't get the same excitement for an hour on the elliptical, which I've had to resort to while I wait for a sprained tendon to heal.
Also I love butter.
posted by eustacescrubb at 4:20 AM on April 10, 2018 [13 favorites]
Feeling better after working out is the only reward worth holding onto, not the doctors approval. Feeling better on a healthy diet is the only reward worth holding onto, not a promise for a longer life.
glad to be old enough not to need Ehrenreich's or others' approval of the only acceptable feelings and motivations to have in life. 'I don't exercise for the health benefits, I do it because it makes me feel so good' -- yes; I, too, have read a women's website in the last decade and am familiar with the house style requirements.
fear of old age and infirmity is no more dignified than fear of death. you fear what you fear but neither is braver or more sensible than the other.
posted by queenofbithynia at 5:18 AM on April 10, 2018 [5 favorites]
glad to be old enough not to need Ehrenreich's or others' approval of the only acceptable feelings and motivations to have in life. 'I don't exercise for the health benefits, I do it because it makes me feel so good' -- yes; I, too, have read a women's website in the last decade and am familiar with the house style requirements.
fear of old age and infirmity is no more dignified than fear of death. you fear what you fear but neither is braver or more sensible than the other.
posted by queenofbithynia at 5:18 AM on April 10, 2018 [5 favorites]
Nothing like watching parents and older relatives "live" longer than their bodies to convince you medical science has no real understanding of what it means to age.
posted by tommasz at 5:53 AM on April 10, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 5:53 AM on April 10, 2018 [4 favorites]
I don’t understand the people who say, ‘I’m so relieved my workout is over, it was torture, but I did it.’
*sigh*
Why do people make a bit of basic body maintenance into something you *have* to enjoy?
I go to the gym and do stretches because, at 62, bits are starting to seize up and I find it helps keep me a bit supple. It's good for me. But I loathe every minute of it and always have, and never feel the slightest bit better when it's done.
But I love bagpipe music, and just don't understand people who say "I'm so relieved it's over, it was torture..."
But that's just me. Different strokes...
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 6:12 AM on April 10, 2018 [4 favorites]
*sigh*
Why do people make a bit of basic body maintenance into something you *have* to enjoy?
I go to the gym and do stretches because, at 62, bits are starting to seize up and I find it helps keep me a bit supple. It's good for me. But I loathe every minute of it and always have, and never feel the slightest bit better when it's done.
But I love bagpipe music, and just don't understand people who say "I'm so relieved it's over, it was torture..."
But that's just me. Different strokes...
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 6:12 AM on April 10, 2018 [4 favorites]
His only real reason for living forever was “Just think of the things you’ll see!” Yeah...no thank you.
Heh, I often feel the same way. I'm not sad that I'll miss out on years of boredom and heartache, but I sure would like to see gay space communism or Mars someday. I'd be pretty content with even just seeing all the things we'll learn about cosmology and astrophysics and such.
Actually having to live for 500 years or a millennium, though? Ugh. There are too many days I think 40 would be plenty despite being within spitting distance already. (It's perfectly possible to have a fulfilling life for much longer than that, just as it's possible to be done much sooner)
I'd be pretty happy with Altered Carbon type consciousness transfer/backup. I'd love to go into hibernation some years from now and then be spun up for a few months to a year once a decade so I can see what's up and then go back to hibernating. In this way I'd get to see all the things I'd be sad to miss without the interminable wait.
posted by wierdo at 8:13 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Heh, I often feel the same way. I'm not sad that I'll miss out on years of boredom and heartache, but I sure would like to see gay space communism or Mars someday. I'd be pretty content with even just seeing all the things we'll learn about cosmology and astrophysics and such.
Actually having to live for 500 years or a millennium, though? Ugh. There are too many days I think 40 would be plenty despite being within spitting distance already. (It's perfectly possible to have a fulfilling life for much longer than that, just as it's possible to be done much sooner)
I'd be pretty happy with Altered Carbon type consciousness transfer/backup. I'd love to go into hibernation some years from now and then be spun up for a few months to a year once a decade so I can see what's up and then go back to hibernating. In this way I'd get to see all the things I'd be sad to miss without the interminable wait.
posted by wierdo at 8:13 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm with andraste.
The 84-year-old father of a person I worked with, some 25 years ago, was in a nursing home, and his family doctor had him on a low-fat diet! "Please bring in a pizza the next time you visit," he asked his son.
My attitude: The man was in his eighties. Let him have whiskey and cigarettes if he wants.
posted by megatherium at 8:42 AM on April 10, 2018 [5 favorites]
The 84-year-old father of a person I worked with, some 25 years ago, was in a nursing home, and his family doctor had him on a low-fat diet! "Please bring in a pizza the next time you visit," he asked his son.
My attitude: The man was in his eighties. Let him have whiskey and cigarettes if he wants.
posted by megatherium at 8:42 AM on April 10, 2018 [5 favorites]
Nothing like watching parents and older relatives "live" longer than their bodies to convince you medical science has no real understanding of what it means to age.
my mom has an internal medicine specialist who she sees every now and then. He's young, good at what he does, but very much a body mechanic. He fixes on specific technical issues and applies fixes. But it's clear in talking to him that he has no grasp on the greater issue of 'quality of life', and more to the point, wants no part of discussing it. His job is to keep the machine humming as long as possible. Period. Leave that soft stuff to others. As part of a team, he's indispensable. As the commander of a team, I fear he'd be a monster, loading up old folks' homes with slowly fading bodies whose minds and/or spirits had long ago exited the building.
Again, for me anyway, the money line goes to mom's new doctor: "Prolonging life too often really means prolonging death."
To which I'd add. This is not a problem we can lay on any individual, or group, or profession. This is where our culture's overall fear of death has gotten us. Far from solving "the problem" of dying and its profound inevitability, we have, through the miracles of modern science, made it about as bad as we possibly could.
posted by philip-random at 9:18 AM on April 10, 2018 [3 favorites]
my mom has an internal medicine specialist who she sees every now and then. He's young, good at what he does, but very much a body mechanic. He fixes on specific technical issues and applies fixes. But it's clear in talking to him that he has no grasp on the greater issue of 'quality of life', and more to the point, wants no part of discussing it. His job is to keep the machine humming as long as possible. Period. Leave that soft stuff to others. As part of a team, he's indispensable. As the commander of a team, I fear he'd be a monster, loading up old folks' homes with slowly fading bodies whose minds and/or spirits had long ago exited the building.
Again, for me anyway, the money line goes to mom's new doctor: "Prolonging life too often really means prolonging death."
To which I'd add. This is not a problem we can lay on any individual, or group, or profession. This is where our culture's overall fear of death has gotten us. Far from solving "the problem" of dying and its profound inevitability, we have, through the miracles of modern science, made it about as bad as we possibly could.
posted by philip-random at 9:18 AM on April 10, 2018 [3 favorites]
There's so much magical thinking about health and life. If I am optimistic and I fight I will beat cancer! If I eat avocados I will live until I am ninety!
One of the biggest predictors of health and longevity is happiness. Another big predictor is genetics. But the culture and the zeitgeist promotes healthy living the way it used to promote godliness. If you aren't making healthy living a large part of your life you are morally inferior. Sensible people know that if they want to go to heaven they are obedient to God... It's the exact same Us vs. Them, complete with the lower income and lower education people don't do this because they are moral failures, not smart enough to know what they should do, or not disciplined enough to do it, but (shrug) what can you do with people like that...?
What the belief in being good will get you to heaven and the belief that healthy living will give you a happy future is that they are wishful thinking that there is a future reward for doing disciplined, carefully chosen virtuous acts now. It seems to me that the two are both a fear of death, in one case hoping for magic immortality after death and the other case hoping for magic immortality without death.
It would be nice if giving to the poor meant that you could be eternally blessed in heaven, and I'm sure some people would stop trying to help the poor if there wasn't the promise of a reward. But that's not why you help the poor. You help them because they matter. You help them because they are your mother, or your child, or future you, and they need to be helped and even if you are never the poor person needing help there is no difference between them and you, no genuine difference between the poor person and your child.
And it would be nice if you could stay alive and in vital good health until 120 by eating kale, but I mean c'mon, in Europe kale is animal fodder, fed to cattle and they don't get to live until they are ancient, they either get slaughtered when their milk yield drops, or when they reach maximum weight. Absolutely kale is good for you, but your longevity and health is more likely to be based on how much you can enjoy a life eating kale and going out and running. If your body happens to feel good when you eat kale then kale is good for you. But if it just gives you indigestion and tastes like animal fodder, I suspect it's not going to work anyway. Similarly if you have the energy and feel joy when you hit the front door on your way out so that you automatically break into a run from the doorstep because the breeze is blowing and it feels like the first day of spring, I think you've got a good chance of having the kind of body that will keep you alive and healthy. On the other hand if breaking into a run hurts and your lungs never seem to be able to draw more air in, despite trying to run on a regular basis, you are probably part of that ten-percent who cannot get fit from doing exercise.
That ten-percent is anathema to the believers. Just like the idea that a person who is over-weight might be much more beautiful than someone the same age who is a healthy weight hits them with cognitive dissonance. Or that someone who eats butter might see their cholesterol drop. "That's just wrong!" And wrong, not only as in in-correct, impossible, someone must have messed up the data wrong, but wrong as in evil. "It's not right to think of someone who has stretch marks and dimples as being more beautiful than someone with tanned and toned thighs. Those of us with tanned and toned thighs deserve to be considered more beautiful and more virtuous and more desirable."
Like I said, happiness is a predictor of longevity. Genetics is a good predictor of longevity. Status is a good predictor of longevity. Income is a decent predictor of longevity, up to a certain point. All of those are much better predictors than diet and exercise. Once you control for those factors diet and exercise are not much better than being able to afford to buy prayers for long life. You'll get about as good results if you pay a bunch of nuns to include you on their prayer list. If you have a deficiency of vitamin D, yeah, it effects your health, you could suffer from vitamin D deficiency disease. And low amounts of vitamin D are implicated in some illnesses. But half the people who get those illnesses have an inability to absorb vitamin D properly, and don't get any benefit from taking it.
The primary illnesses that will kill most of us - stroke and heart disease and cancer, are more caused by an unhealthy stressful environment than by our diet. Having to be in heavy traffic, that's what kills you from stroke. Having to go to a job you hate. That's what kills you from stroke. So when your doctor says, you're at risk of a stroke, do something, and you add going to the gym on top of the job you hate, you better love going to the gym, or now you are doing two things you hate and your risk of stroke is increased. Of course if you love going to the gym and feel like you are finally making some time to enjoy yourself, it's going to work nicely. But you might get as good a result if your make it a special solitary dinner and movie night, and instead of saving for your old age, start eating steak dinners that you have been depriving yourself of.
I think that part of why it's so hard to criticize the diet and exercise and fat people are morally inferior beliefs is because there's real terror behind some of the believers devotion. They really are terrified, and for them adhering to a diet and exercise lifestyle, or believing in one, so they can adopt it once their health gets bad enough they are motivated to do it, makes them feel they are escaping something that is chasing them.
There are a lot of exercise and diet people who are having an absolute blast. "I made the most fantastic chickpea curry! I ran a 5K this weekend!" It's the ones who hate themselves because they ate a pudding cup, or because their weight went up seven pounds and they no longer have a thigh gap who are the most fervent believers - and sadly, they are also the ones who most likely are not getting any benefit from all that self denial and all those workouts.
Of course most people fall into the middle category - changing their eating habits, or beginning to exercise could improve their lives a bit, and make them more healthy. Yep. But so could a host of other changes, like cleaning up the back bedroom. That would improve their morale and they'd have fewer symptoms of depression and that would make their heart and lungs work better, and maybe make them actually enjoy the walk home from the bus stop and get them to speed up a little bit. - The increase in happiness is what's responsible for their better functioning heart and lungs, not the increase in speed.
I'm all for diet and exercise. But it has to be done with love, loving it, not done through spite or self-hatred.
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:42 AM on April 10, 2018 [18 favorites]
One of the biggest predictors of health and longevity is happiness. Another big predictor is genetics. But the culture and the zeitgeist promotes healthy living the way it used to promote godliness. If you aren't making healthy living a large part of your life you are morally inferior. Sensible people know that if they want to go to heaven they are obedient to God... It's the exact same Us vs. Them, complete with the lower income and lower education people don't do this because they are moral failures, not smart enough to know what they should do, or not disciplined enough to do it, but (shrug) what can you do with people like that...?
What the belief in being good will get you to heaven and the belief that healthy living will give you a happy future is that they are wishful thinking that there is a future reward for doing disciplined, carefully chosen virtuous acts now. It seems to me that the two are both a fear of death, in one case hoping for magic immortality after death and the other case hoping for magic immortality without death.
It would be nice if giving to the poor meant that you could be eternally blessed in heaven, and I'm sure some people would stop trying to help the poor if there wasn't the promise of a reward. But that's not why you help the poor. You help them because they matter. You help them because they are your mother, or your child, or future you, and they need to be helped and even if you are never the poor person needing help there is no difference between them and you, no genuine difference between the poor person and your child.
And it would be nice if you could stay alive and in vital good health until 120 by eating kale, but I mean c'mon, in Europe kale is animal fodder, fed to cattle and they don't get to live until they are ancient, they either get slaughtered when their milk yield drops, or when they reach maximum weight. Absolutely kale is good for you, but your longevity and health is more likely to be based on how much you can enjoy a life eating kale and going out and running. If your body happens to feel good when you eat kale then kale is good for you. But if it just gives you indigestion and tastes like animal fodder, I suspect it's not going to work anyway. Similarly if you have the energy and feel joy when you hit the front door on your way out so that you automatically break into a run from the doorstep because the breeze is blowing and it feels like the first day of spring, I think you've got a good chance of having the kind of body that will keep you alive and healthy. On the other hand if breaking into a run hurts and your lungs never seem to be able to draw more air in, despite trying to run on a regular basis, you are probably part of that ten-percent who cannot get fit from doing exercise.
That ten-percent is anathema to the believers. Just like the idea that a person who is over-weight might be much more beautiful than someone the same age who is a healthy weight hits them with cognitive dissonance. Or that someone who eats butter might see their cholesterol drop. "That's just wrong!" And wrong, not only as in in-correct, impossible, someone must have messed up the data wrong, but wrong as in evil. "It's not right to think of someone who has stretch marks and dimples as being more beautiful than someone with tanned and toned thighs. Those of us with tanned and toned thighs deserve to be considered more beautiful and more virtuous and more desirable."
Like I said, happiness is a predictor of longevity. Genetics is a good predictor of longevity. Status is a good predictor of longevity. Income is a decent predictor of longevity, up to a certain point. All of those are much better predictors than diet and exercise. Once you control for those factors diet and exercise are not much better than being able to afford to buy prayers for long life. You'll get about as good results if you pay a bunch of nuns to include you on their prayer list. If you have a deficiency of vitamin D, yeah, it effects your health, you could suffer from vitamin D deficiency disease. And low amounts of vitamin D are implicated in some illnesses. But half the people who get those illnesses have an inability to absorb vitamin D properly, and don't get any benefit from taking it.
The primary illnesses that will kill most of us - stroke and heart disease and cancer, are more caused by an unhealthy stressful environment than by our diet. Having to be in heavy traffic, that's what kills you from stroke. Having to go to a job you hate. That's what kills you from stroke. So when your doctor says, you're at risk of a stroke, do something, and you add going to the gym on top of the job you hate, you better love going to the gym, or now you are doing two things you hate and your risk of stroke is increased. Of course if you love going to the gym and feel like you are finally making some time to enjoy yourself, it's going to work nicely. But you might get as good a result if your make it a special solitary dinner and movie night, and instead of saving for your old age, start eating steak dinners that you have been depriving yourself of.
I think that part of why it's so hard to criticize the diet and exercise and fat people are morally inferior beliefs is because there's real terror behind some of the believers devotion. They really are terrified, and for them adhering to a diet and exercise lifestyle, or believing in one, so they can adopt it once their health gets bad enough they are motivated to do it, makes them feel they are escaping something that is chasing them.
There are a lot of exercise and diet people who are having an absolute blast. "I made the most fantastic chickpea curry! I ran a 5K this weekend!" It's the ones who hate themselves because they ate a pudding cup, or because their weight went up seven pounds and they no longer have a thigh gap who are the most fervent believers - and sadly, they are also the ones who most likely are not getting any benefit from all that self denial and all those workouts.
Of course most people fall into the middle category - changing their eating habits, or beginning to exercise could improve their lives a bit, and make them more healthy. Yep. But so could a host of other changes, like cleaning up the back bedroom. That would improve their morale and they'd have fewer symptoms of depression and that would make their heart and lungs work better, and maybe make them actually enjoy the walk home from the bus stop and get them to speed up a little bit. - The increase in happiness is what's responsible for their better functioning heart and lungs, not the increase in speed.
I'm all for diet and exercise. But it has to be done with love, loving it, not done through spite or self-hatred.
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:42 AM on April 10, 2018 [18 favorites]
I avoid things that are carcinogens because dying of cancer sucks. I exercise, either walking, which I can do indoors in winter at various locations, or outside, where it's a pleasant activity, and dancing. Life, even my imperfect life, is amazing and I'd like as much of it as possible as long as I'm able. I want to see the next grandbaby. I want to see if my son will be okay. It's trite AF, but I love seeing the seasons change. I want to see how things turn out. I'm going to die. Maybe today, maybe in 30 years. My 90 year old friend just skipped an important family event to finish a piece of art. That's how I want to live.
Maybe Barbara Ehrenreich has done enough. Maybe she's depressed. I don't know. I hope she keeps writing a long as she can, because she is a really great writer who chooses excellent subjects.
posted by theora55 at 9:47 AM on April 10, 2018 [4 favorites]
Maybe Barbara Ehrenreich has done enough. Maybe she's depressed. I don't know. I hope she keeps writing a long as she can, because she is a really great writer who chooses excellent subjects.
posted by theora55 at 9:47 AM on April 10, 2018 [4 favorites]
fear of old age and infirmity is no more dignified than fear of death.
This is also not the point of her eating butter or continuing to smoke. The linked article is trying to make an argument about quality of life and quality of death. But Ehrenreich's book only discusses it to point out how it's leading to a health inequality. People with healthy bodies and healthy bank accounts get decent health care.
Everyone else gets blamed for their deaths.
We should be using scientific progress to make our lives better. Instead we use it to deprive people of care. It's a social justice issue, and we have a duty to examine the toxic consequences of touting 'personal responsibility'
posted by politikitty at 10:16 AM on April 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
This is also not the point of her eating butter or continuing to smoke. The linked article is trying to make an argument about quality of life and quality of death. But Ehrenreich's book only discusses it to point out how it's leading to a health inequality. People with healthy bodies and healthy bank accounts get decent health care.
Everyone else gets blamed for their deaths.
We should be using scientific progress to make our lives better. Instead we use it to deprive people of care. It's a social justice issue, and we have a duty to examine the toxic consequences of touting 'personal responsibility'
posted by politikitty at 10:16 AM on April 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
Caring for the aged is complicated by the fact that there is often close family involved whose notions of care are in opposition to the patient. Many times I see older patients and they may wish for minimal intervention whereas the son or daughter is apoplectic at the idea of ignoring a minor abnormality in a liver enzyme or blood count. It is never cookie-cutter. It is never straightforward. But the doctor and patient do need to be free of legal or familial pressures to over-treat and that is not always easy.
posted by docpops at 10:40 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by docpops at 10:40 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
there is often close family involved whose notions of care are in opposition to the patient
Advance Directives ought to be required by law. And specific ones at that (ie: way more than just a Do Not Recuscitate directive).
posted by philip-random at 10:59 AM on April 10, 2018
Advance Directives ought to be required by law. And specific ones at that (ie: way more than just a Do Not Recuscitate directive).
posted by philip-random at 10:59 AM on April 10, 2018
I worked my ass off for years so I and my family could have a good life, and died before I reaped the benefits.
Having been given a "second chance" I now do what I want to do (within reason) and enjoy life a lot more - health permitting.
I eat whatever I like, drink what I want - though I don't actually like alcohol nowadays, and that is out of choice rather than necessity.
I would like to get about a lot more, but unfortunately that is not possible without serious consequences.
I haven't seen a doctor for ages, and the last time I did he greeted me with "I thought you were dead!!"
posted by Burn_IT at 1:49 PM on April 10, 2018
Having been given a "second chance" I now do what I want to do (within reason) and enjoy life a lot more - health permitting.
I eat whatever I like, drink what I want - though I don't actually like alcohol nowadays, and that is out of choice rather than necessity.
I would like to get about a lot more, but unfortunately that is not possible without serious consequences.
I haven't seen a doctor for ages, and the last time I did he greeted me with "I thought you were dead!!"
posted by Burn_IT at 1:49 PM on April 10, 2018
I find one of the scary things about approaching middle age is beginning to get a visceral understanding of the way that quality of life could deteriorate to the point that it didn't seem like continuing onwards. Young invincible me could get no theoretical understanding of that at all. Now that parents and mentors are aging and dying and even somewhat older friends are going through painful rigamaroles of treatment, boy, do I see it more clearly.
Honestly, it was a happier way to live.
posted by praemunire at 3:02 PM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Honestly, it was a happier way to live.
posted by praemunire at 3:02 PM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
My grandma didn’t excercise or diet a day in her life and she lived to be 107. I’m planning to do the same.
posted by lydhre at 4:56 PM on April 10, 2018
posted by lydhre at 4:56 PM on April 10, 2018
Dying young because of unhealthy choices is a red herring in the conversation about healthy living.
I have people in my family who eat like crap and smoke and drink and never exercise and they're very much alive. Most of them are already pretty old and will probably live well into their 80s or 90s. The problem is they're in constant pain from bad circulation, they suffer from nephropathy from diabetes, they get winded walking 10ft to the kitchen and are out of breath for minutes after sitting down.
Generalizing cause and effect in health is dumb for obvious reasons. Genetics plays a huge role and modern medicine seems particularly shit at understanding nutrition outside of the lab. That said, based on first hand family accounts I now see living with pain in many ways worse than dying young. When I was a smoker I accepted lung cancer as a risk but it was seeing emphysema up close that finally made me quit.
posted by laptolain at 5:20 PM on April 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
I have people in my family who eat like crap and smoke and drink and never exercise and they're very much alive. Most of them are already pretty old and will probably live well into their 80s or 90s. The problem is they're in constant pain from bad circulation, they suffer from nephropathy from diabetes, they get winded walking 10ft to the kitchen and are out of breath for minutes after sitting down.
Generalizing cause and effect in health is dumb for obvious reasons. Genetics plays a huge role and modern medicine seems particularly shit at understanding nutrition outside of the lab. That said, based on first hand family accounts I now see living with pain in many ways worse than dying young. When I was a smoker I accepted lung cancer as a risk but it was seeing emphysema up close that finally made me quit.
posted by laptolain at 5:20 PM on April 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
I wish I could force my dad to read this thread. He just texted me the news that my 72 year old aunt has cancer and most likely less than a year to live. Then he proceeded to moralize about her lifestyle, and say that she is now "paying the price" for her bad choices. I wanted to reach through the phone and slap him.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 8:19 PM on April 10, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by WalkerWestridge at 8:19 PM on April 10, 2018 [3 favorites]
Earlier today I began watching a documentary profiling the life of Eldon Dedini, legendary cartoonist/artist/interesting as hell human being who Lived A Good Life, and Lived A Good Long Life, too. (Published for over sixty years in The New Yorker, Playboy, Esquire, et all)
I went away from the documentary just over half-way through, things to do, and just came back to it now. The last of that video is pitch perfect for this thread, dead on, Dedini calls it exactly right, talks of his life, which he sure loved, and lived so well, and that life soon ending. It's a short segment of the vid, not but 40 seconds, but it's really sweet. It's queued up for you: Dedini: A Life of Cartoons
posted by dancestoblue at 9:50 PM on April 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
I went away from the documentary just over half-way through, things to do, and just came back to it now. The last of that video is pitch perfect for this thread, dead on, Dedini calls it exactly right, talks of his life, which he sure loved, and lived so well, and that life soon ending. It's a short segment of the vid, not but 40 seconds, but it's really sweet. It's queued up for you: Dedini: A Life of Cartoons
posted by dancestoblue at 9:50 PM on April 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
"I hate getting older, but it's better than the alternative."
What makes you think so? In truth we have no idea if that's actually the case.
posted by fantasticness at 7:20 AM on April 11, 2018 [4 favorites]
What makes you think so? In truth we have no idea if that's actually the case.
posted by fantasticness at 7:20 AM on April 11, 2018 [4 favorites]
I don't understand the desire to live a very long life. As we've prolonged the human life-span we've in actuality only prolonged the stage of decline. When the life-span was 40, people peaked at 25-27 and then only had 10-15 years of slow decline. Now that the life-span is about 80, the human body and mind still peaks at 25-27 and then the slow decline goes on for FIFTY YEARS.
25-35 the decline is quite subtle then becomes increasingly more so every five years after that. If they came up with a pill that gave you the health, mind and looks of a 23 year old until the age of 50, but had the minor side effect of killing you by age 55 it would be very popular. A long period of peak and then only 5 years of decline??- I think a lot of us would sign up for that drug. I saw a small documentary about the oldest people in the world. There were women well over 100 who were practically begging for death. One was 112 and she could barely speak, but she did say that she was ready to go. Another woman also well past the 100 mark talked about how she didn't understand why God wasn't finished with her and there was so much sadness when she said it. As if she tought God was punishing her. When asked why she felt this way she talked about burying her own children and watching everyone she knew pass away and not being able to do anything as she is trapped in her own decrepit body. A long life is over-rated. The mid-life crisis men and women go through happens largely because they are suddenly faced with the knowledge that they've got 40 or so long years left on this planet and that LONG ass time will be spent in the state of decaying.
posted by fantasticness at 7:42 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
25-35 the decline is quite subtle then becomes increasingly more so every five years after that. If they came up with a pill that gave you the health, mind and looks of a 23 year old until the age of 50, but had the minor side effect of killing you by age 55 it would be very popular. A long period of peak and then only 5 years of decline??- I think a lot of us would sign up for that drug. I saw a small documentary about the oldest people in the world. There were women well over 100 who were practically begging for death. One was 112 and she could barely speak, but she did say that she was ready to go. Another woman also well past the 100 mark talked about how she didn't understand why God wasn't finished with her and there was so much sadness when she said it. As if she tought God was punishing her. When asked why she felt this way she talked about burying her own children and watching everyone she knew pass away and not being able to do anything as she is trapped in her own decrepit body. A long life is over-rated. The mid-life crisis men and women go through happens largely because they are suddenly faced with the knowledge that they've got 40 or so long years left on this planet and that LONG ass time will be spent in the state of decaying.
posted by fantasticness at 7:42 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
fantasticness - I don't know your age but midlife for most people is not about realizing that the rest of your time on earth is going to be filled with days of decay and misery. It's more about realizing that the last 50 years went quickly and any time you have left will feel like it passes even faster. I've taken care of thousands of aging people. They don't ruminate on their maladies. They (like me) want more time on earth to appreciate and be among the things they love, be it sports or hobbies, or loved ones or nature. Not once do most people feel "old" in their minds. I know I look old as shit to my 30 y/o colleagues (I'm 51). But I feel anywhere from 15-30 in my mind depending on what song is playing, what picture I happen to see on my computer, or which friend reaches out to check in. And I'm far, far happier in this decade than at any other time in my life, which is consistent with studies on aging. Not giving a shit and having a lot of life's larger questions settled for you, good or bad, is pretty fantastic.
I think above all else every person needs autonomy to call it quits when they feel like it's time. We fail the aging in that respect and need to be more receptive to their wishes. In a perfect world anyone over 75 would never be cared for by a doctor under the age of 50.
posted by docpops at 8:12 AM on April 11, 2018 [10 favorites]
I think above all else every person needs autonomy to call it quits when they feel like it's time. We fail the aging in that respect and need to be more receptive to their wishes. In a perfect world anyone over 75 would never be cared for by a doctor under the age of 50.
posted by docpops at 8:12 AM on April 11, 2018 [10 favorites]
Now that the life-span is about 80, the human body and mind still peaks at 25-27 and then the slow decline goes on for FIFTY YEARS.
I dunno, I'm 46 and I feel like my mind works better every year. I read and understand more complex things, I'm better at playing music, I'm a better cook, I'm less of a self-centered asshole. My physical health isn't perfect, but it's still pretty good so far.
posted by Daily Alice at 9:58 AM on April 11, 2018 [6 favorites]
I dunno, I'm 46 and I feel like my mind works better every year. I read and understand more complex things, I'm better at playing music, I'm a better cook, I'm less of a self-centered asshole. My physical health isn't perfect, but it's still pretty good so far.
posted by Daily Alice at 9:58 AM on April 11, 2018 [6 favorites]
Also, to each his own, but I would so totally not sign on for the "perfect health until death at 55" pill. I don't think my parents (who are now 72 and 75) would have either.
posted by Daily Alice at 10:00 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Daily Alice at 10:00 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
Physically I felt pretty much the same from my mid 20's up to my late 40's. Somewhere around age 48 or 49 I suddenly noticed feeling "older", with more random aches and getting tired sooner (though as docpops mentioned above, mentally I'm consistently stuck at about 33-35, and have been since I was in my early 20's). My 50's haven't been horrible, but it hasn't been fun either as I've had to make some reluctant adjustments and accommodations for my no-longer-young body.
I'm hoping this sudden dip in physical ability/health will more or less flatten out over the next couple of decades, and I'm doing what I can to help that happen. But if the downward trend continues I don't see a long happy path to my 70's or 80's in my future.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:20 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm hoping this sudden dip in physical ability/health will more or less flatten out over the next couple of decades, and I'm doing what I can to help that happen. But if the downward trend continues I don't see a long happy path to my 70's or 80's in my future.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:20 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
Also, the average lifespan even going back to the early modern period in the West wasn't actually 40, if you survived childhood. Extreme rates of child mortality dragged the average down (the figures usually exclude infant mortality altogether, because it would even further warp the results). If you made it to adulthood, you stood a good chance of reaching your fifties, at least.
posted by praemunire at 10:21 AM on April 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 10:21 AM on April 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
my 50's haven't been horrible, but it hasn't been fun either as I've had to make some reluctant adjustments and accommodations for my no-longer-young body.
starting around age forty, I started feeling age. But it honestly took me a good fifteen years to figure out that mostly what it was telling me was to slow the f*** down. Stop trying to do everything at young man speed. Not only are you hurting yourself, you also don't need to. You're wiser now. You know a few shortcuts. Take them for f***'s sake. And if there's no short cut available, sucker some young man into doing it. He'll be moving too quickly to notice ...
posted by philip-random at 11:21 AM on April 11, 2018 [7 favorites]
starting around age forty, I started feeling age. But it honestly took me a good fifteen years to figure out that mostly what it was telling me was to slow the f*** down. Stop trying to do everything at young man speed. Not only are you hurting yourself, you also don't need to. You're wiser now. You know a few shortcuts. Take them for f***'s sake. And if there's no short cut available, sucker some young man into doing it. He'll be moving too quickly to notice ...
posted by philip-random at 11:21 AM on April 11, 2018 [7 favorites]
fantasticness -- people with disabilities can live long, happy, satisfying lives even if they're never at the "peak performance" stage you seem to want to stay at. Quality of life isn't measured just by the ability to easily train for a marathon or pick up a foreign language.
Of course, some people with disabilities can easily train for a marathon or learn multiple languages! And everyone has their own individual "peak." But some people never will never have the ability to learn a second language, or to see clearly, or to walk, and that doesn't mean their lives are meaningless. I worry that the idea of "it's worth living only if you're AWESOME" is ableism.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:48 PM on April 11, 2018 [5 favorites]
Of course, some people with disabilities can easily train for a marathon or learn multiple languages! And everyone has their own individual "peak." But some people never will never have the ability to learn a second language, or to see clearly, or to walk, and that doesn't mean their lives are meaningless. I worry that the idea of "it's worth living only if you're AWESOME" is ableism.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:48 PM on April 11, 2018 [5 favorites]
Quality of life is subjective, I suppose. For most people losing a finger or two wouldn't make life unbearable... but for someone who's been playing the piano since childhood and lives to play music, it could easily be a suicide worthy injury. Doctor's know this and it's part of the reason they like to ask what someone does for a living before certain treatments as they'd like to know how it's going to affect their lives and what alternatives they have if any.
Still- I don't think it's wrong to assume that most people, given a choice would choose to live a shorter life with a longer youth than a longer life with a shorter youth. My grandmother Lived a very active, independant and healthy life all the way to 85 and then suddenly just had a stroke and died. That's the way to go as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather have that than live to 102 and spending the last 15 years of that going blind, deaf, unable to walk, unable to remember and having to feel guilty when younger relatives that I know would secretly rather be doing something else have to dress me and wash me. I don't think these are crazy thoughts.
posted by fantasticness at 3:21 PM on April 11, 2018 [3 favorites]
Still- I don't think it's wrong to assume that most people, given a choice would choose to live a shorter life with a longer youth than a longer life with a shorter youth. My grandmother Lived a very active, independant and healthy life all the way to 85 and then suddenly just had a stroke and died. That's the way to go as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather have that than live to 102 and spending the last 15 years of that going blind, deaf, unable to walk, unable to remember and having to feel guilty when younger relatives that I know would secretly rather be doing something else have to dress me and wash me. I don't think these are crazy thoughts.
posted by fantasticness at 3:21 PM on April 11, 2018 [3 favorites]
I just hope I go like my grandfather did.* Apart from having had multiple heart attacks eventually resulting in a quadruple bypass (he was a meat'n'taters/fried food country guy all his life), he was quite the local handyman, he liked to travel, and he really liked playing golf - he was regularly out on the municipal course with his pals sometimes 2-3 days a week. Apparently he got his final heart attack walking down the fairway, and the doctor said he was probably dead before he hit the ground. I could - so to speak - live with a death like that.
*I can't resist mentioning the old joke: "Peacefully in his sleep, not screaming in terror like the passengers in his car"
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:42 PM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
*I can't resist mentioning the old joke: "Peacefully in his sleep, not screaming in terror like the passengers in his car"
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:42 PM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
Fantasticness, you're really digging in hard on this ableist stance. There are plenty of people in the world who are blind, deaf, mobility impaired, cognitively impaired, neurodivergent, or have many other kinds of disabilities, who still feel that their lives are worth living. Pretty much all of us spent at least the first few years of our lives being washed and dressed by relatives who would rather be doing something else (I may be disqualifying myself from the Good Mother award, but I was never overjoyed at a 2 AM diaper change) - why is it more humiliating when you're old than when you're young?
posted by Daily Alice at 3:53 PM on April 11, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Daily Alice at 3:53 PM on April 11, 2018 [4 favorites]
A long life is over-rated. The mid-life crisis men and women go through happens largely because they are suddenly faced with the knowledge that they've got 40 or so long years left on this planet and that LONG ass time will be spent in the state of decaying.
it's not often I just say something is WRONG, but this is pretty close.
As a 58-year old who has seen many contemporaries go through their crisis phase (which is real, it does happen, seemingly rational people do some really dumb things), it's not fear of too many years slow decay that freaks them out, it's suddenly realizing that their life is at least half complete, they're aging, There Isn't Enough Time Left!
If they came up with a pill that gave you the health, mind and looks of a 23 year old until the age of 50, but had the minor side effect of killing you by age 55 it would be very popular. A long period of peak and then only 5 years of decline??- I think a lot of us would sign up for that drug.
and at what age would one make this decision? Under thirty -- yeah, I can see how it might appeal, but then folks can be pretty foolish at that age, particularly with regard to what growing and aging and ultimately living actually means.
I do remember hearing an aging specialist talk about how dying has changed over the past fifty or hundred years. Back in the day, on average, you tended to live fairly well (with some slowing down, of course) until comfortably into your 70s or 80s. And then something would happen ... and you'd be dead within about six months. Nowadays, with all the advances in medical science, all we've mostly done is shift the dying from six months after "something happens" to six years.
So yeah, prolonging death again, not life.
posted by philip-random at 4:08 PM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
it's not often I just say something is WRONG, but this is pretty close.
As a 58-year old who has seen many contemporaries go through their crisis phase (which is real, it does happen, seemingly rational people do some really dumb things), it's not fear of too many years slow decay that freaks them out, it's suddenly realizing that their life is at least half complete, they're aging, There Isn't Enough Time Left!
If they came up with a pill that gave you the health, mind and looks of a 23 year old until the age of 50, but had the minor side effect of killing you by age 55 it would be very popular. A long period of peak and then only 5 years of decline??- I think a lot of us would sign up for that drug.
and at what age would one make this decision? Under thirty -- yeah, I can see how it might appeal, but then folks can be pretty foolish at that age, particularly with regard to what growing and aging and ultimately living actually means.
I do remember hearing an aging specialist talk about how dying has changed over the past fifty or hundred years. Back in the day, on average, you tended to live fairly well (with some slowing down, of course) until comfortably into your 70s or 80s. And then something would happen ... and you'd be dead within about six months. Nowadays, with all the advances in medical science, all we've mostly done is shift the dying from six months after "something happens" to six years.
So yeah, prolonging death again, not life.
posted by philip-random at 4:08 PM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
"There are plenty of people in the world who are blind, deaf, mobility impaired, cognitively impaired, neurodivergent, or have many other kinds of disabilities, who still feel that their lives are worth living."
And yet I'm still sure that most people given the choice would rather go the way that my grandmother did. Which is all I ever said.
I'm a little confused as to why people seem to be changing the subject. This isn't about ALL impaired people. This isn't even about disabled people since being born disabled is different and there are so many different types of disabilities including many that do not involve any pain whatsoever. This topic is about aging and how most when/how most people would prefer to go. The psychological attributes that pertain to aging are virtually universal, while those that are simply attributed to disability in general have infinite variables and are anything but universal. It is a different topic entirely. Especially since no one ever brought up the idea that disabled people don't want to live. I did bring up the idea that many of the super-elderly do not want to be living anymore, but you can just look up interviews with them to confirm that one. *edit: Please notice I did not say ALL people feel this way.
posted by fantasticness at 4:39 PM on April 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
And yet I'm still sure that most people given the choice would rather go the way that my grandmother did. Which is all I ever said.
I'm a little confused as to why people seem to be changing the subject. This isn't about ALL impaired people. This isn't even about disabled people since being born disabled is different and there are so many different types of disabilities including many that do not involve any pain whatsoever. This topic is about aging and how most when/how most people would prefer to go. The psychological attributes that pertain to aging are virtually universal, while those that are simply attributed to disability in general have infinite variables and are anything but universal. It is a different topic entirely. Especially since no one ever brought up the idea that disabled people don't want to live. I did bring up the idea that many of the super-elderly do not want to be living anymore, but you can just look up interviews with them to confirm that one. *edit: Please notice I did not say ALL people feel this way.
posted by fantasticness at 4:39 PM on April 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
Personally, the difference between being cared for as a child and as an infirm elderly person is choice. A child doesn't get to decide and has their entire life ahead of them. When I'm old, assuming I make it that long, I'll have most of my life behind me and the ability to choose not to ask other people to clean me and feed me and clothe me.
I totally respect anyone making whatever choice they like regarding how they want to be treated when they are nearing the end and how long they want to keep going. I don't like being shamed for not particularly wanting that for myself barring some unforeseen circumstances. It's ableist to say that the infirm and/or disabled should always be left to die or encouraged to commit suicide or whatever. It's not ableist to say "if I can't do the things that I feel give my life meaning I don't want to live the other life on offer, thanks." Everybody gets to make their own decision, and anybody shaming anybody else in either direction on this is being a flaming asshat. Luckily, nobody has actually done that here.
posted by wierdo at 7:12 PM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
I totally respect anyone making whatever choice they like regarding how they want to be treated when they are nearing the end and how long they want to keep going. I don't like being shamed for not particularly wanting that for myself barring some unforeseen circumstances. It's ableist to say that the infirm and/or disabled should always be left to die or encouraged to commit suicide or whatever. It's not ableist to say "if I can't do the things that I feel give my life meaning I don't want to live the other life on offer, thanks." Everybody gets to make their own decision, and anybody shaming anybody else in either direction on this is being a flaming asshat. Luckily, nobody has actually done that here.
posted by wierdo at 7:12 PM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
> I'm a little confused as to why people seem to be changing the subject. This isn't about ALL impaired people. This isn't even about disabled people since being born disabled is different and there are so many different types of disabilities including many that do not involve any pain whatsoever. This topic is about aging and how most when/how most people would prefer to go.
I brought it up because whenever the conversation is about "lives of this quality are not worth living," it's easy to see that as including people with disabilities.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:58 PM on April 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
I brought it up because whenever the conversation is about "lives of this quality are not worth living," it's easy to see that as including people with disabilities.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:58 PM on April 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
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