Do I really want to live longer?

[paulgfoster]

Hello , I practice Cr and think its a great idea, however I don't do it to live longer. I do it for optimal health and to avoid medical practitioners and polypharmacy.

Why don't I want to live longer? , well at 58 I think the world is changing and not all for the better.

I am not resistant to change but already have begun to feel I don't fit into our current world and am shocked at how society is heading. In this ' Brave New World' I see myself moving more and more into Huxleys savage reservation.

Would I want to be here on earth in fifty years time, well the answer is no.

Why you ask , well a lot of society involves around what you wear, where you eat and who you are seen with. The obsession with plastic surgery and people walking around looking like stunned cod fish because they have had so much surgery they cant smile or blink. Then there is the youth with their fake tans, hair extensions and tendancy to want to drink to oblivion. The work place that today is so punctuated with meetings there isn't time for the work that's supposed to be done.

The loss of trades and skills , the shoddy prefabricated houses that will be lucky to last one generation, unlike some of those built hundreds of years ago.

The lack of quality in bought items once built to be repaired and last a life time , now lucky if they reach the end of the warranty.

Take a trip on a bus or train and view all the people plugged into machines, not seeing not hearing in a world of their own.

In my opinion the people seem like they are being dumbed down, too pre occupied to protest or get passionate about their life or culture. Without sounding like a conspiracy theorist maybe that's what is wanted.

Meanwhile their lives and cultures are being eroded with mismanagement by our leaders but does anyone care.

Then there is the appalling inability to cook, or want to cook,the lack of understanding of nutrition the dependency on fast foods ,and the fact due to poor eating these generations will die earlier than their parents.

The growing gulf or distance from nature and mother earth and the real reason we are on the earth.

Go into our supermarket and the checkout staff cant tell what half the fruits and vegetables are.

Even worse the countries our forefathers fought for are being sold to overseas interests and will never be the same again.

Yes I do have a computer for a while but should this one break down will not bother with another . yes I have a mobile but for emergencies only ie if I break down in the bush .Again I wont be getting another and most of the time its off. I have just got rid of my car and have two bicycles. I could live without all modern items if I had too, the only thing I really would miss is my refrigerator as its so hot here and food would spoil quickly.

Yes I am in my little reservation , growing my own food and following Cr and I can see as I age that will be my retreat from the crazy outside world. Maybe people will point at that skinny old savage looking man who seems to have lived there forever!

[paulgfoster]

Yes I suppose I sound a little eccentric but what I am asking is how do other cronies see themselves fitting into an ever changing world of the future? a future where they may see all their non cronie friends and family pass away and outlive them all.

Not negative thoughts but just something that interests me. Although not as traumatic as being resurrected with cryogenics, if it were possible.

I have worked with the elderly in aged care for 36 years and a part of the aging process seems to be that they become satisfied with their lot, feel that the good old days are gone, often that they have achieved what they want and are ready to move on. Most don't understand the younger generation , their music, lifestyle and struggle with ever changing technology.

Please don't think my comments are negatives against Cr because I am a firm believer in Cron, I just like to think about all the outcomes and see the situation in its entirety.

[Guest K]

Yes I suppose I sound a little eccentric but what I am asking is how do other cronies see themselves fitting into an ever changing world of the future? a future where they may see all their non cronie friends and family pass away and outlive them all.

Not negative thoughts but just something that interests me. Although not as traumatic as being resurrected with cryogenics, if it were possible.

I have worked with the elderly in aged care for 36 years and a part of the aging process seems to be that they become satisfied with their lot, feel that the good old days are gone, often that they have achieved what they want and are ready to move on. Most don't understand the younger generation , their music, lifestyle and struggle with ever changing technology.

Please don't think my comments are negatives against Cr because I am a firm believer in Cron, I just like to think about all the outcomes and see the situation in its entirety.

 

Paul, I know this is a couple of months late...but...I think I love you. LOL! ;-) I could have written this myself. I am at the tail end of the baby boomers and feel the same. The world is changing too fast, and I have purposefully kept myself out of much of the technology loop: no smart phone, no TV, no MP3 player, no GPS device for my car (need that for work, but a very low end efficient model), no e-reader (real books only!) and no social networking. I cook every night and eat out only when visiting family. My life is simple - my work complicated, but life outside of work is simple and out in nature as much as weather permits. Give me a cardinal chirp over a Twitter alert any day.

 

I, too, have witnessed people glued to their little screens, even parents with their kids at the play ground. How sad. I want no part of it. The culture and our country are devolving instead of evolving. Sadly, I am not sure we can turn the ship around at this point, or what it would take to do so even if it were not too late.

 

Initially I was interested in CRON because of the longevity potential, but like you, I started to question why live longer for the sake of living longer. Now, while I am not a super strict adherent - I do eat very nutritionally dense foods and little, so my private version of CRON - I believe this is the best way to stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible. Basically, I'd love to avoid all medical care and die like the original CRONer Luigi Cornaro, just go into a gentle sleep and not wake up.

 

So, you are not alone on your savage reservation. I even grow some of my food, if just herbs on my patio. Keep fighting the good fight.

 

K

[paulgfoster]

Thank you guest K ,I was beginning to think there was only me that thought this way in our Brave New World.

[Guest MM]

I wouldn't paint quite such a bleak picture of life and attitudes among the younger people today. It is true that many people match the picture you have painted perfectly and it is very discouraging to be around such people. But it is also true that there seems always to be a group of people of all ages who value, if I may use a shorthand, nature over technology. Sustainability programs are being developed at many universities, driven by the demands of students for more ecological awareness and responsibility. I am currently taking art classes at the university where I taught and I am humbled by the good hearts of many of the students. Not all, of course. But they need us to help them find and develop confidence in a way of life that honors nature.

 

MM

[GenGenimney]

I don't want to be a sick old woman, like one of my grandmothers.

 

We apparently have fairly decent longevity genetics.  My parents were both born in my grandparents' older years, so I never knew my great-grandparents.  But average life expectancy for my grandmother at birth was around 50--at age 30, it was 70.  And despite living a very sedentary life and abusing alcohol and smoking, she made it to 81.  But she was sick from her mid-50s, heavily due to lifestyle factors.  My grandfather's last day of exercise was in 1945--mandatory PT before being dismissed from the Navy.  He never even walked briskly after that point, and he, too, was like an old man by the time he was in his mid-50s.  By some insane luck or genetic lottery, he made it to 87.

 

My other grandmother was in her mid-90s.  She was independent until she was 90 and would have lived much longer except that she broke her hip a SECOND time, was doing great after the surgery, but got a pulmonary embolism just a day and a half before she was going to be released from the hospital and died.  She had a bad hip from the time she was in her 60s that impaired her mobility until her first hip fracture, when they replaced it.

 

My other grandfather died of lung cancer.  All the men in the family were smokers, and they ALL died prematurely of lung cancer.  Apparently, they were very susceptible.

 

I want to have the best chance possible at independence until I'm 90.  I don't want to go nuts, like my older grandfather.  :)  I don't want to have bad joints or be crippled from ill-health due to bad decisions I made when I was younger.

 

My mother's making crappy decisions now because she (insanely) thinks she's genetically doomed.  Well, if you get fat and never exercise, you're not going to feel great, are you????  She was certain that physical decline was inevitable starting in her early 30s, and I saw how it was a result of her bad decisions, not anything that needed to happen.

 

Do I want to live to 100?  Sure, if I can do it healthfully.  I want to be as absolutely healthy as possible as long as possible.