Bryan Johnson, a millionaire entrepreneur obsessed with staying young, pops in 100 pills a day — it is more than the amount of rice I eat for lunch.
All things being equal, it is a wonderful thing to live longer and healthier.
But when I hear that Bryan is spending $2 million a year on longevity, and is taking transfusions of ‘young blood’ from his son, I sense that something crazy is going on.
I feel Bryan’s obsession with anti-aging is not about living well, but about somehow escaping aging and death. Alas, when we try to make an impermanent thing permanent, we create misery.
The very nature of life is impermanence. Yes, we should improve (and possibly, increase) our life with running, yoga, workouts, sleep, and diet.
But mortality is inescapable. And the bigger worry should be not whether we will die, but whether we will live — the former is inevitable, but the latter is a choice.
I hope you have a very long life. But just as much, I also hope that your days are filled with joy, meaning, and laughter.
The tragedy is not that life ends, but that we take it for granted until it does.
– Rajan