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Portrait by C. Dey Prescott
D. R. Prescott has written a novel, short stories, a nonfiction book, a collection of essays, a full-length-three-act play, planetarium show/display scripts, two family histories, technical articles and business plans as well as written for and edited several newsletters.
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Recent awards and published work include Writers' Journal, Long Story Short, Taj Mahal Review literary journal, The Orange County Register, Writer's Digest and Writing.com among others.
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Prescott currently writes and explores life in Orange, California.
"Sentience can be annoying."
-DRP Abt. 1990
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My fifth contribution (BENGAY AND PROMISES) to The Taj Mahal Review
Literary Journal December 2010 is available: http://ning.it/ggarW6 ________________________
Don Prescott appears on Episode 7:Colonizing the Cosmos and 8:The God Question of D. Wayne Dworsky's Alpha Centauri & Beyond Blog Talk Radio.
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Available today in most eBook formats from these fine people:
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IS THERE TIME: http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/item/SW00000027236/Prescott-D.-R./Is-There-Time/1.h...
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And, COMING SOON at Amazon.com
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O R D E R T O D A Y !
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Aging
by D. R. Prescott
I am aging. All humans age, some gracefully, others less so. Most of us accept aging as part of the deal. Some go to great lengths to fend it off under a scalpel, shedding fat in a sweaty frenzy or using hundreds of other methods touted to reverse or slow the effects of aging. In spite of our best efforts, aging wins in the end. Is it supposed to be that way? Really? I object!
As I write this, I am approaching sixty-seven. The longer I live, the more helplessly I watch one year pass faster than the last. Why? I have a theory. When you are five, one year is one-fifth of your entire life. At 60, a year is only one-sixtieth of your life which distorts your perception of time making it seem to pass faster and faster as you age.
Many professional people are focused on the aging process—investigating it, seeking to understand it and ultimately trying to thwart it. These people who study why and how people age search for that much sought-after secret of making people live longer and healthier. I encourage them to keep at it, scream at them to work faster and hope they come up with a solution because I am aging much too fast for my liking. Even the healthiest of us eventually succumb to the process. Our bodies wear down and our lights go out. We just accept it as a fact of life.
Does it have to be that way?
That is a question worthy of a little exploration. Since we know that life expectancy in developed and developing countries is increasing, why shouldn’t we live much longer than we do? Might it be possible to extend our lives to better match our sense of time? We can imagine thousands, millions, even billions of years into the past or future. Why shouldn’t we live a thousand years or more? Extension of life, on average, has been accomplished. Two hundred years ago, the average person was considered old or was likely dead by fifty years old. Today, we who are fortunate enough to live in modern societies routinely live into our seventies and frequently into our eighties. Medical science has extended life, nearly doubled it, often in spite of our questionable lifestyles. Why not go for more, a lot more?
There are some who think that aging is not indomitable. Certain turtles, the Blandings and Midland Painted varieties, do not seem to senesce (physically deteriorate) as they age. In fact, there is some evidence that they produce more eggs the older they get. They appear to be vigorous up until they die because they are killed, attacked or become infected. Unlike humans who are prone to senescence and more susceptible to certain diseases as they age, these turtles live long, healthy and productive lives until their die. How would you like to be vital and productive until the day you die? If it is good enough for turtles, it is good enough for me. Bottle what they have and I’ll buy it right now.
Anti-aging researchers suggest that breakthroughs in tissue rejuvenation via stem cells, genetics and similar research will lead to humans extending their lives indefinitely. At the other extreme, some fantasize that some day we will be able to upload ourselves to some sort of electronic or biological computer giving us lives that go on virtually forever.
In passing, what do words like indefinitely and forever mean anyhow, especially when you are talking about lifespan? Indefinitely and forever are distinct concepts with overlapping notions; they are not interchangeable. Indefinitely is indefinite. It could be forever or may end tomorrow. I prefer the word ‘interminably’ if you are talking about my life. Interminable means that it seems to go on without end… lasting. Indefinitely is definitely too indefinite for me; give me interminably any day.
There are those that think there are reasons that human life extension creates huge opportunities as well as monstrous ethical conundrums. There are upsides and downsides to the idea of medically or technologically extending human lifespan. Here are some to think about:
1) Some propose that people living too long will become bored, despondent, run out of things to do, tend toward being suicidal and generally come to hate living. I sure would like to give it a try if I could be vigorous and healthy in the process. I have broached only the tiniest fraction of the things I want to do in my life. In this amazing universe, I struggle with people who say they are bored. I am convinced that I could live a number of average human lifespans without ever dealing with boredom or running out of things to do.
2) One obvious problem is who would be eligible to have their lives extended, everybody or just a chosen few. If only a chosen few, all sorts of social and economic issues plop into our ethical stew, making a dangerous splash of friction between haves and have-nots which will likely get very ugly. If everybody gets a longevity fix as a matter of being human and alive at the moment, just the overpopulation implications are daunting.
3) One of the significant downsides is human population growth. By 2050, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that people over 65 will make up 20% of the United States population, up from 12% in 2009 or 50% higher than the 8% of 1950. On top of that, the same agency projects that world population will grow from 6.8 billion people in 2009 to 9.3 billion by 2050, over 35% greater than today. How do we and our planet handle that demand—additional people demanding more resources?
4) Think of what great minds might accomplish if the likes of Da Vinci, Newton, Galileo, Einstein, Bach, Beethoven, Shakespeare or any number of people, whose talents now lost to the world, had remained vital and productive for hundreds of years instead of just decades.
5) Would people have to learn to live more tolerantly with one another? Or, would there be a thinning of the human herd (survival of the fittest) as the more aggressive vie for increasingly scarce resources at the expense of others?
6) On a brighter side, political will might stretch its perspective so that things good for us like climate change, energy and potable water might get more consideration since politicians would have more of a stake in the results many decades ahead. It would get more personal if they knew they would be alive to reap the rewards or the consequences of their actions. Then, again, maybe that is just wishful thinking.
7) Would the older and aging population come to grips with war? Or, would war become more prevalent due to scarce resources? I have previously recommended that if there were a universal law that no one under fifty would be allowed to fight, war might become obsolete. That would likely be an effective deterrent because we would no longer have old men and women sending off the young to fight their wars for them. Unfortunately, don’t count on that anytime soon.
8) Would it not be great to be able to learn multiple skills or professions unhindered by just a few productive decades of life? If you had hundreds or thousands of years, you could be train and retrain as the mood struck, taking up new vocations and avocations unfettered by old age, infirmity or dying in less than a hundred years. Every century could be a new adventure awaiting your presence.
9) Would extending human lifespan result in lower birth rates and improved standards of living? In developed countries, as standard of living improves birth rates tend to decline. With an increasingly older population, the ideal population growth rate would be zero. Can you imagine enforcing zero-growth worldwide? You can almost hear the outcries now from both sides of the issue. But, if you extend how long people live, something would have to give. What else could you do to arrive at a stable, sustainable population level?
In spite of the issues, I suspect that most people faced with being able to extend their productive lives interminably would jump at it. It would initially be a “me” thing. Once personal longevity was assured, then it would become a “mine” thing. People would want others they love or know to join them in long, healthy lives. Where would it stop? If we think we have problems today, imagine the problems if we were able to double our lifespan within the next fifty years and human population continue its slower but apparently inexorable growth.
Still, do you know anybody in the medical research community that is close to finding the spring of long life? If so, let me know. I want to talk to them and get very chummy, very quickly. I still object to not being able to live interminably in spite of the issues; I admit, it is a “me” thing!
© Copyright 2010 D. R. Prescott (UN: donprescott at Writing.Com).
All rights reserved.
D. R. Prescott has granted InkSpot.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
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