Live long and prosper

Coincidentally, I've recently listened to a book and a radio talk show that both consider how to avoid the inevitable...getting old.

In Orson Scott Card's The Worthing Saga, man discovers a means to live in near perpetuity by sleeping for long periods of time. During these times, the sleeper's memory is removed and stored, and the body is kept in a hibernating state by means of "soma". When the person is waked, their memory is re-inserted and they are not a day older than when they went to sleep.

Everyone wants to become a sleeper and live forever. A social hierarchy develops as soma is handed out as a privilage for the social elite. Although years on soma does indeed enable a few to escape time's fingerprints, they find themselves disconnected from society as everything they find comfortable and everyone they know and care about passes away while the sleeper lives on. In finding eternal life, they find they aren't living.

The second of these was a radio-west program in which the host interviewed Dr. Harry Lodge (I can send you a download link if you email me). Dr. Lodge discusses what scientific research has been telling us about "getting old" and retirement.

According to Lodge, our bodies evolved to support two basic modes -- times of vigor in which we hunt, eat, get stronger, and repeat (historically summer), and times of regression when food is scarce, activity is moderated to very low levels, and our bodies slowly degrade, trying to extend our life (through winter) until the next opportunity for a time of vigor.

The interesting part is his conclusion that our bodies interpret periods of inactivity as a regression period. Hence, our bodies conserve calories (we gain weight), and we slowly metabolize away our muscles because lean body mass requires more metabolic energy than fat. Additionally, we feel tired and depressed as our bodies warn us not to do anything as that would waste energy.

On the other hand, our bodies read periods of exercise and activity as a time of bounty. We feel energized , happy, and alive as our mind and body is prepped for "the hunt." Our muscles grow stronger, our bones grow denser, and our mood improves.

Dr. Lodge then contends that what we typically associate with retirement, ie. rest and inactivity, is the worst thing we could possibly do as we age. Most of the symptoms that we associate with old age such as weight gain, diabetes, fatigue, memory loss, depression, etc. are significantly exacerbated by inactivity.

With modern medicine, we don't die much earlier if we aren't healthy...we just live on for years and years in a state of corporal decline. His mission, then, is to encourage people to live fuller, healthier lives until shortly before we die, with the end coming in a matter of months rather than years when our time has come.

What's the point? It is tempting to think rest will make us feel better when we don't feel well and retirement will be our rest from the cares and worries of the world. Our bodies push us to rest whenever we can, and this system worked when food was scarce and staying alive meant conservation in all but the most bounteous times, but in our modern world food isn't scarce and we don't have predators hunting us down. We just aren't forced into the physical activity, but it is absolutely required by our bodies to live happy, healthy, lives.

In other words, if you want to live life, don't just sleep through it. Go ride (and go faster than I did at 5 Mile).