Posted 15 May 2008 - 11:25 PM
. There are many in the anti-aging movement who say that aging is a disease that can be prevented. Do you believe that by eating well, exercising, and doing the other things you recommend in Healthy at 100, a person can live a life without illness and perhaps live forever?
John Robbins says:
A healthful diet and lifestyle almost always lead to a longer and healthier life. They provide increased vitality, improved resistance to disease, and a greater sense of wholeness and freedom. But even the finest exercise and diet plan cannot forever overcome the inevitability of aging. Eventually, even the best-cared-for bodies begin to weaken and no longer function as once they did.
In our appearance-oriented society, aging can seem like a misfortune. But in the process of aging, people often come to understandings that are crucial to the completion and fulfillment of their lives. They learn something about loss and acceptance. They may have to cope with enormous difficulties‹a husband dying, a wife getting cancer, even the death of a child. They come to know how vulnerable everyone is. They understand that life is hard at times for everyone.
We have so much to learn from the old. There was a cartoon in The New Yorker entitled "Yuppie Angst." A man is saying, "Oh no, I spilled cappuccino on my down jacket." Elders, who have seen their families and friends die, who have seen generations of people come and go, can have a deeper understanding of tragedy. Closer to death, they are much more in touch with the cycles of life. They understand what makes a life worth living. They know there is little point in having low cholesterol and rock hard abs if you don't love your life.
There are people who make healthy choices hoping that as a result they will never become ill or die, but my motivations are different. I know that suffering occurs in every human life, and I want to prevent as much illness as I can and alleviate as much suffering as I am able. I ask people to take as much responsibility for their health and life as they can, not to avoid everything painful in the human experience, but to lessen suffering and to enrich and illumine who they are with wisdom and love.
A wise man once said, "If you go forward, you will die. If you go backward, you will die. It is better to go forward." The point of going forward, of working to make your life a positive expression of your highest vision, is not to avoid all suffering and death, for that is not within the realm of human possibility. The point, rather, is to meet all of your life experiences, including the most difficult ones, with the greatest powers of love and healing within you. The gift of going forward is not that you will never physically decline or fall ill, but that you will be less likely to do so prematurely, and better able to meet whatever life brings you with grace and wisdom.
We are all vulnerable and naked before the mysteries of life. Sometimes when we look deeply and honestly at our woundedness, we discover our power, our joy, and our will to live. We realize that we can accept imperfections, and that things become beautiful when we love them.
A human life has its seasons, much as the earth has seasons, and each one has its own particular beauty and possibilities. When we ask life to remain perpetually spring, we turn the natural process of life into a process of loss rather than a process of celebration and appreciation.
