I recently saw a CBS 60 Minutes segment about aging. It
revealed, once again, how we view age as a physical state that we can
control with “anti-aging medicine”—as if various ‘fixes’ such as growth
hormones, plastic surgery, erection drugs and myriad vitamin therapies
will somehow put off the inevitable. I am not saying any of these
medical remedies are bad. In some cases, it is neat to be able to do
things at 80 that most 80-year-olds aren’t doing or haven’t ever been
able to do before. Whether medical or other external ‘props’ are needed
is not the real issue.

What troubles me is that we view age through the same lens that we
view disease…as something bad that needs to be treated. The show also
talked about ‘age management’ as a rapidly evolving field that, in one
way or another, will help ‘control’ the process of aging in the
interest of ‘staying young’ as long as possible or at least making the
most of what can only be interpreted as a ‘less than desirable stage of
life’. Some folks were even smug in their denial of old age and had
consciously decided to risk shortening their lives for a few extra
years of looking and feeling ‘young’.

Since the concern for age begins for most of us in our late 40s or
50s, this means that our commonly shared view as a culture and as
society is that we will live roughly a third to a half of our lives in
a state of decline that should be put off for as long as possible—that
we need some external intervention to stay happy and healthy. This is
nuts. Why don’t we look forward to getting older? If we can’t look
forward to the future—at any age—then we will inevitably, in one way or
another, be forced to cope with circumstances as best we can. Winning
will be about comfort (rather than accomplishment), and eventually we
will (if we haven’t already) become resigned that there isn’t much
possibility beyond the short-term and whatever we’ve learned in the
past.

I reject the whole “anti-aging” view… I say let’s create a context of “pro-aging” in which we can:

• Take Viagra because we like sex (not because we want to stay young)…
• Still be healthy by staying engaged in life and doing all the
  things we should have been doing all along having to do with exercise
  and diet…
• Manage our lives like we always have and not need to worry or give a second thought to our age
• Have ‘who we are’ become our central concern (not how old we are).

Happiness would then be a natural consequence of living life to the
fullest, not some circumstantial hype based on living life in a certain
way or on taking some specific medication or supplement.

Most importantly, life would be a constant dance with possibilities,
a tantalizing tango of living full out everyday that ends with the last
day being as rich, full and filled with potential as the first.

Let us go out the way we came in—with a slap on the ass and a celebratory scream to let everyone know we are ALIVE!