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Roger von Oech's avatar

Glenn: another thought-provoking essay! And timely for me: I have a “5” birthday next week, and though not as mind-grabbing as the “0” ones, it has certainly put my age front and center in my thoughts.

You mentioned reversing the aging process. Here’s one of my favorite bits from the early 1980s (from an anonymous comic though often mis-attributed to George Carlin):

“Life is tough. It takes up all your time, all your weekends, and what do you get at the end of it? Death, a great reward.

“The life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, and get it out of the way. Then you live for twenty years in an old age home, and then get kicked out when you’re too young. You get a gold watch and then you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement.

“You go to college and party until you’re ready for high school. Then you go to grade school, you be- come a little kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating, and you finish off as a gleam in somebody’s eye.”

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Doug Jones's avatar

Despite a tumultuous youth and some some chronic low-level back pain (a skydiving accident left me an inch shorter almost 40 years ago), my worst complaint at age 62 is a touch of arthritis in a few joints and some hearing impairment that's finally caught up with me. An extended fast is improving the arthritis noticeably on a time scale of weeks, and the electronics in my ears are cheap and effective.

If I could roll my physical condition back to 40 or so, I'd happily stay at that level for as long as happenstance allows, give me another century or two to do all the things and see all the places!

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