Age is just a number......but it always increases

 This post is grappling with the most fundamental issue of ageing and why we seem to deny its impact. As the years go hurtling along, suddenly the years, months, weeks and days move at a pace which is so fast that instead of galvanizing one into action it paralyses us into inaction as we look at missed opportunities. If there was a certainty and consistency in how we aged there would be no reason to write this blog. 

 As a number age can only increase but there is an important distinction between life span and health span. My recent readings seem to suggest that the medical profession and healthcare in general has failed spectacularly in increasing health span while it has increased life span significantly in last few decades 

 

There is a decline in the person as he ages and the obvious decline is in the physical side of a person. Then there is also a slow but certain cognitive decline and or ability to remember and learn new skills or things. Also there an emotional decline. The business of halting this decline is the job of a new type of healthcare system which will focus on risks for atherosclerosis and heart ailments, type 2 insulin resistant diabetes,  Metabolic disorders like Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, neurological disorders and Dementia. All these are the main disorders which are making our last decade of prolonged life span disatorops in terms of health span. 

If today at the age of nearly 63 I am told that I have a choice to live upto the age of 120 with a perfect health span meaning I maintain the health say of what I had at age 50 my attitude to everything I do would be different than  say an expected life of a say two more decades. In this respect I gain inspiration from two sources, Mahatma Gandhi the Father of the Nation whose death anniversary was today.  At the All India Congress Committee meeting in Bombay on 8^th August, 1942, that is, on the eve of Quit India Movement, Mahatma Gandhi declared, “I want to live full span of my life and according to me, the full span of life is 125 years". The bullet of an assassin cut short his life at age 79. Victor Frankl book Man's Search for a meaning also is a book which shows how attitude can overcome all odds and make man survive if he has a purpose. He was living a life of a captive Jew in the concentration camps and saw many die not necessarily in the gas chambers but because of a broken spirit and the inability to find a meaning to life. He survived because he focussed on the prospects of becoming free and being reunited with his family. He lived to the age of 92. 

Today I feel enthusiastic and even in the face of all the negativity surrounding me in my life and in the world in general.  I want to work on myself physically, emotionally and cognitively to live a long life to do the work which is my swadharma. I have also the example of my mother who is 97 year old but her last 5 years have been miserable and now severe Osteomalacia and Dementia are affecting her badly. 

Are intentions and attitude enough? I do not think so therefore I am going to the drawing board and working to fulfill this quest for a long life with an increase health span which will equal lifespan. 

In this context I will be referring to two books which I will summarize and aim to implement in this year. This is a resolve which I will attempt and try to succeed. Time only will tell if I do so or not. 

https://vhjokhi.blogspot.com/2023/08/lifespan-why-we-age-and-why-we-dont.html

Link to an older post on this same topic. 

Presently I am reading another book which too talks of a different approach to the same problem. The complexity and at time simplicity of both these books make me swing like a pendulum between hope and despair along with clarity and confusion. Writing and sharing will help me and you too dear reader if you want the same, to fulfill your swadharma. 

Vispi Jokhi