I have not embraced becoming an adult. Many of the adults I knew growing up made adulthood seem terrible. Becoming an older adult (an elder – perish the fucking thought!), has happened kicking and screaming – I’ll let you know if that changes. That’s the rub about being human and subject to the conditions of the material world.

This is an interesting world, but I’ve just started to feel like I have some command of my life, and now I enter my elderhood when the body starts falling apart and can no longer do what my younger self wanted to do but couldn’t manage.

Yes, books, songs, comedies, and tragedies have exhausted the topic, but I’ve not been here before – and likely neither have you.

I met a woman in her twenties who was already having plastic surgery to game aging (good luck with that), and another who constantly buys potions, pills, infrared devices, and anything else she can barely (or not) afford to keep collagen and her telomeres from reduction or corruption – although ultra rich people like Jeff Bezos are working to solve that. You’ll have to be in the ultra rich category to benefit from it. Immortality or near-immortality won’t come cheap. Also, there isn’t enough resources on Earth for everybody to be immortal. Maybe that’s why Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars?

A better solution might be to somehow have a human brain implanted in an android shell, but that human brain would still be subject to aging – and android shells would be too. All material corrodes or otherwise breaks down eventually. It’s an immutable reality of the material world. But, hundreds of years alive are better than our current sub-100 average.

Bryan Johnson lives an algorithmically driven daily regimen to keep his body and mind 18, or as close to that as he can. His goal isn’t to cheat death but to live an optimal life.

My brain got trauma wired as a young child, and continuing into my young adulthood – and so many of us are born with, or develop, challenges to living a well-regulated life.

We’re here for a minute, really. What are we going to do with it?

I’d like to be more highly functioning. That’d be nice. Less depression, less anxiety, more embracing of whatever time I have left, and write that book I have wanted to write for at least a decade.

I have watched friends drop off sideways to cancer and other terrible illnesses. I have lived long enough to see most of my aunts and uncles reach their 90’s and 100’s before finally succumbing to various conditions or simply wearing out. My maternal grandfather lived to 102, but was mostly blind and deaf at the end. We haven’t solved those problems yet, even if we can live in a better physical condition.

We all come into a tumultuous world. It can seem like we were born too late or too soon, and that’s why reincarnation is such an attractive concept. This might not be our one shot. Some people claim to remember past lives, but most of us come into the world with a blank slate, oblivious of any prior existence (if there were one, which I doubt).

Our species seems to seek power and domination above all else. Nothing is ever enough. We also have the possibility of peaceful and contented lives, and that’s what I’ve been trying to achieve. It’s been an elusive goal that I’m still working toward.

Contentment doesn’t mean a risk-free, or a challenge-free life. It’s a choice, and a commitment, and not all of us have the ability to choose. Less pain and strife means more time for focused creativity and a fulfilling life.

I don’t know if I’m getting wiser, but I certainly have more awareness and experience. The balance of time growing shorter is also a good motivator. It’s do before I die now, even if I could reasonably live another forty years. There’s no way to know what time will bring, but my memory of my early years is growing less sharp.

Maybe I’ll try Bryan Johnson’s protocol. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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© seekingsearchingmeaning (aka Hermionejh), Making A Way Blog, 2010 – current