In a world in which nothing can be done about aging and inevitable death, acceptance is necessary. To remain sane and productive, to work towards a golden future that we will not live to see, requires a stoic viewpoint. One must accept the aspects of the world that are beyond control, and understand that we can control our own reactions to those aspects, so as to lead the best possible life under the circumstances. Aging has long been an aspect of the world beyond our control; one could endeavor to be more healthy rather than less healthy, but in the end there was still the inevitable decrepitude, suffering, and death.
Yet now biotechnology offers the near future possibility of the medical control of aging - and even today, the first rejuvenation therapies, those that selectively destroy senescent cells, are already available to anyone adventurous enough to try. In this environment, where funding, support, and the will to progress are all required to build out the full portfolio of means of human rejuvenation, acceptance of aging has become harmful and poisonous. It holds us back, and tens of millions of lives are the cost of every significant delay.
When you are repeatedly subjected to an unpleasant or painful situation over which you seem to have no control, there comes a point past which you simply give up on the very idea that you could possibly escape your predicament. Once you learn that you're helpless in the face of circumstances beyond your control, you could end up simply accepting what is happening to you, even when the circumstances have changed enough to offer a way out.
We find this relevant because this learned helplessness could play a role in the pro-aging trance - or, at least, what happens in people's minds because of the pro-aging trance is very much reminiscent of learned helplessness. If you're new around here and have no idea what the pro-aging trance is, it's basically one of the main drivers of irrational opposition to rejuvenation therapies; it's the groundless conviction that aging is a blessing in disguise and that the fact that people age to death is actually good, despite the overwhelming, blatant evidence that this is not the case.
Even though you don't spend your entire life with worsening eyesight, diabetes, cancer, or heart disease (to name but a few), you - like everyone else on the planet - were brought up with the notions that aging is inevitable and that one day it will kill you if nothing else does it first. You're accustomed to the thought that, as you age, you will lose your health to at least some extent, and you have an idea of what you might be like in old age - weak, hunched over, easily fatigued, and with feeble senses and, if you're unlucky, even more serious health problems. This idea is woven into every fiber of our society, arts, and institutions; even if you're not exposed directly to the ailments of aging for most of your life, you are exposed to the unpleasant thought that your clock is ticking - a clock that measures not just the time you have left but also your remaining health - and that there's no way that you could ever stop the clock.
In other words, you spend your entire life with the knowledge that your health is slowly declining, a decidedly unpleasant thing that, ultimately, you have no power to prevent. Therefore, you learn to accept it and make your peace with it, perhaps whimpering about it every now and again, but doing nothing else about it. Once the effects of aging manifest themselves in your old age, the feeling of helplessness gets even more real, as your health problems are no longer hypothetical and your doctor can essentially only help you manage your symptoms. This overall situation has much in common with the definition of learned helplessness.
Link: https://www.leafscie...tance-of-aging/
View the full article at FightAging
