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MIGHT JUST SEEM LONGER
Sunday Oct. 30, 2016
Almost every day I encounter people who aren’t on a path they can define or call their own – have no notion what ‘success looks like’ and fewer still who have a plan, who can answer: what are we doing, why are we doing it, and how will we know when we’ve arrived where we are going?
Aiming for a big number?
When we get there, to target age, will we feel we’ve arrived, or simply re-fix our target?
Worse, would be to arrive unhappy, saying, “Oops, bad decision. I’m here, but I’m not happy”.
Just clicking, we can visit blue zones – interesting to me those lone ‘urban’ blue zone folks have two things that stand out. Not high altitude or vigorous physical activity: religious and vegetarian. Not to say those blue-zoners aren’t tilted to faithful life and healthy diets, but it strikes me as peculiar, not ‘because they live in Loma Linda’ but because they are vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists living in Loma Linda. I wonder then, and I’m neither statistician or student of organized religion, but wouldn’t logic suggest we’d find pockets of very old people wherever Seventh Day Adventist vegetarians live?
Living long, in its own right, doesn’t contribute anything to the world other than giving overworked care givers and food producers more to do and children longer to wait for their inheritance. Should we live in blue zones – or visit to see ‘what it is like to live longer’? Which will matter more: living longer, living better or doing more things we call worthwhile? I heard a joke once, about married men living longer. The punch line: “actually, it just seems longer.”
Living long, well – taking better care. Noble motive, if we are on some path we created to reach our objectives. Surely, getting old and staying healthy only for that purpose – then dying later than others seems silly.
I’ve been eating more fish, more vegetables, less meat, exercising more. I don’t drink. I’ve never visited a blue zone.
Though, I drove by Loma Linda once …
written / published from Calgary, AB
morning walk with Gusta: 7C/45F, cloudy and dead-calm, ribbon of light peeking over the horizon under the clouds – Gusta sniffing under every smelly leaf (seems most of them are attracting her nose) while I opted for a brisk uphill walk. I won. A great full grateful day awaits …
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