Live Long, Die Short (6 page)

Diseases of urbanization, such as cholera, influenza, and tuberculosis, killed or incapacitated huge segments of the population. The early Industrial Revolution saw a dip in life expectancy, most prominently among children and factory workers. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, populations were growing, and average life expectancy increased due to better access to regular food. When Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch formulated the germ theory of disease and Pasteur developed the first vaccines in the second half of the nineteenth century, lifespan increased significantly. In 1855, Dr. John Snow was able to pinpoint a particular water supply, the Broad Street pump in London, as the source of the cholera epidemic that was sweeping through the city and killing tens of thousands.
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By removing the handle to that pump, he was able to stop the epidemic. In 1867,
English surgeon Joseph Lister championed the use of carbolic acid as an antiseptic, significantly reducing the likelihood of infection and death associated with surgery, and in 1908, the first citywide treatment of water with chlorine began in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Life expectancy at the end of the nineteenth century in the United States was still approximately age forty-nine, but these discoveries, which provided safe water, infection-reduced surgery and childbirth, vaccines, and, eventually, in 1928, penicillin, began to increase longevity dramatically. In fact, in the twentieth century alone, lifespan increased more than it had since the Bronze Age. We were bright. We were beautiful. We were the rulers of the earth. Maybe we would live forever.

Today, we live longer than our ancestors of any era. We’re able to travel anywhere on the globe and even into space. We produce and transport any commodity needed: food, cars, electronics, and clothing. We rarely die of infectious disease, and can replace hearts, kidneys, shoulders, knees, and hips. Yes, we have come a long way from our humble roots as a species.

We awake in temperature-controlled houses, have ready access to showers and baths. Our breakfast is in the refrigerator or cupboard, or at the nearest restaurant. It’s whatever we want and as much as we want. We sit and eat. We sit in our cars and drive to work. Many of us sit at work, peering into computer screens or talking on telephones. We spend long hours looking at screens: computers, iPhones, televisions, GPS devices, games. We have tens, even hundreds, of friends, but rarely touch their hands, or look into their eyes, or sit peacefully hearing their stories. We use our cars as transporters, offices, and image enhancers. Fast, calorie-rich food is everywhere and affordable, ready to pick up at the end of a drive-through line.

Our time-saving devices allow us to rush about and accomplish so much more. We move fast on freeways while we order a pizza. We text a friend while talking to another. We attend meetings and read texts and emails while the speaker is telling us how to be more efficient. We have devices that do our math, look up any known fact, correct our spelling, and type what we say. Our children are musicians, and athletes, and dancers, and busy. Many of us have nannies, and landscapers, and painters, and personal assistants, and life coaches. We can drive through restaurants, car washes, banks, coffee houses, and pharmacies. And yes, we have pills to make us feel better, or get thinner, or sleep better, or to prevent allergies or
colds. If we’re feeling sluggish, we can get more energy from the contents of a can or bottle.

We are efficient machines, able to accomplish more and more if we get the right tools, and if we just go a little faster, or sleep less, or just try harder.

We have lived in this evolved society our whole lives, and as a result, we are less than objective, even blind, when it comes to the way we now live. So, let me tell you about my last twenty-four hours. Yesterday I spent many hours preparing my flower and ornamental grass beds and then spreading mulch. It was work I wasn’t used to. But I resolved to be mindful about this work rather than complain or think about what I would do when I was done. Along the way of spreading this mulch, something happened. A switch flipped and I became very aware of the sweet smell of the mulch, of its warmth. And I was pleased with these feelings. This was not tedious work. In fact, being able to see the fruits of my work, something immediate, concrete, and visual, gave me surprising, pleasant sensations. My work, preventing disease, is rewarding work, but you rarely get a glimpse of the result, and almost never immediately.

And as I spread the mulch I could feel my leg, arm, back, and abdominal muscles moving, contracting, relaxing. I was aware of a feeling of optimism, of overall physical well-being, much like the endorphin rush we get when we exert ourselves physically. And I thought, why should this happen?

Our ancestors had to work hard, and if there were no reward other than survival, why would mankind persist? There had to be more immediate gratification, hence the myriad of neurotransmitters that flood us after running a race, or building a fence, or mulching a flower bed. And my response was more than physical. Mentally there was a relief from my normal mind chatter about what I had to do that week, or problems at work, or what Jack meant by that remark, or how long I could hold off on buying a new car. This relief provided me a feeling of peace and mental well-being. I became more attentive to the smell and feel of the mulch. I was a happy camper.

My neighbor Steve drove by as I was working. He laughed and said, “You know, there are people who do that. Why are you doing it? I had someone come and it was done in no time.” As he drove away, I thought about his remark. I would miss the near spiritual experience (it hadn’t started that way, but as I grew more mindful, it became so much more). I would miss the pleasing sensation of my body in motion. I would miss the
sense of accomplishment. I would miss the feeling I would have over the next year as I looked out on my lawn. I’m sure it makes financial sense for Steve to not spread his own mulch, but what he’s missing—a connection with those who came before us, and to what makes us human—is priceless.

Today, although a little sore, I went to the fitness center. As I pedaled away on a recumbent bicycle, the woman next to me was also pedaling—and texting, and reading, and listening to music.

Now, the attitudes and actions of people like Steve and this woman at the gym aren’t uncommon. They are, however, at least for me, on this day, a litmus test of our society’s separation from its roots. Considering the lives of our ancestors (the word
lifestyle
doesn’t seem to fit), our current lifestyle represents an ever-growing gap between their world and our own. It’s progress, yes, but a kind of progress our bodies cannot adapt to, and we are suffering because of it.

Yes, it is true that average life expectancy increased more in the twentieth century alone than it had since the Bronze Age, but this is more a matter of knowledge and technology breakthroughs than any change in how our bodies function. In fact, living longer has presented us with health, quality-of-life, and societal challenges we are totally unprepared to manage.

When we look at our lives today, we see that they are radically different from those of our ancestors. Time is king. Time is money. Idleness is the evil empire. We multitask—no, we are
obsessed
with multitasking. Technology and societal values allow us to believe we are indeed effective because we’re driving, drinking our coffee, talking on the phone, thinking of the upcoming meeting, and railing against the jerk who just cut in front of us. We spend a large proportion of our daily lives sitting. We are texting and emailing in prodigious numbers and “friending” or “connecting” with people we’ve never meet or never will. All this results in us being everywhere but where we are. Our area of focus is expanded at the expense of our sense of ourselves in
this moment
, the only place where we truly experience our existence. Our sense of accomplishment is enhanced at the expense of our sense of well-being.

We are left with a feeling of being alone in a hostile world, and consequently we tenaciously fight for our piece of the pie, for our personal rights, for what is good for us and our immediate family. Our purpose, for a good part of our lives, revolves around our personal advancement: wealth,
prestige, and comfort. We vote for those who promise to give us what we consider important, even at the expense of what is good for a greater number. The end result of this survivalist and self-absorbed approach to life is a chronic, continuous, consuming, and killing stress. When we fail to perceive ourselves as part of all life, or a member of our human race, or part of a country, or part of a village, we become isolated in a way our ancestors never knew, and we are the worse for it. Many of our illnesses are those of maladaptation: exposure to a world of food, to chemicals, and to a time-obsessed, noisy, high-tech culture our body systems are not yet equipped to deal with. We suffer from chronic disease, spending large portions of our now longer lives impaired in some way. We are so much better off than our ancestors … and yet we are not.

Robin Wright sums up our modern plight in
The Moral Animal
: “We live in cities and suburbs and watch TV and drink beer, all the while being pushed and pulled by feelings designed to propagate our genes in a small hunter-gatherer population. It’s no wonder that people often seem not to be pursuing any particular goal—happiness, inclusive fitness, whatever—very successfully.”
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As for what it is like to be old today versus when your great, great, great (times a few thousand) grandparents walked the earth, the disparity is stark. First of all, older people aren’t rare. With average life expectancy nearly doubling in the last century, and with eight to ten thousand boomers turning sixty-five every day in the United States, elderhood is more common today. That said, elders have no established role in society. No necessary, established expectation or responsibility. They are programmed into a marginal position of leisure and entitlement, essentially invisible in the media unless the object of ageist humor or described as part of an overall societal financial liability. The time-honored advice to “respect your elders” is rarely heard and less often practiced. This all sounds grim, markedly unlike the experience of our hunter-gatherer or agrarian ancestors, but is entirely consistent with a postindustrial, production-oriented society.

Let’s now outline some of the biggest differences between humanity’s past and present.

Society

• egalitarian
  
• mostly content
  
• basically nonviolent
  
• strong social safety nets
  
• inclusive/high sense of belonging
  
• sharing as a core characteristic
  
• harmony with the earth
  

Lifestyle

• highly physical
  
• strong social connection
  
• strong sense of place/purpose
  
• diet based on plants, fruits, nuts, fish, occasional meat/limited overall calories/obesity rare
  
• little chronic stress
  

Status of older adults

• essential role as advisors
  
• valued
  
• non-sedentary
  
• supported by society
  
• critical role in social fabric
  
• viewed as uncommon
  

Society

• stratified economically
  
• high stress
  
• regimented work/recreation
  
• violence common
  
• limited social/financial safety nets
  
• high alienation and isolation
  
• more removed from nature/pollution more common
  

Lifestyle

• more commonly sedentary
  
• traditional social connection less common
  
• roles based on occupation or parental status
  
• mobile
  
• diet of calorie-rich food/less plant-based/additives common
  
• high chronic stress
  

Status of older adults

• no established role
  
• viewed as societal liability
  
• more sedentary/chronic disease common
  
• marginalized/isolated with growing age
  
• size of population growing rapidly
  

In short, we are living under conditions radically different from the ones our species has lived under for 99 percent of the time we’ve walked the earth, and from our basic, authentic-needs point of view, much of this change doesn’t represent progress.

We are an aging nation. There’s nothing we can do about it. The huge birth rate after World War II and through the Korean War and the rocking fifties—from 1946 to 1964—produced 76 million children, who are now turning sixty-five at a rate of over eight thousand every day. These and other trends are changing us as a people and as a nation. The Population Reference Bureau summed up these trends back in 2004: “The US is getting bigger, older, and more diverse.”
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(By “bigger,” the report means “more populated,” although obesity is certainly another trend.) More diversity will indeed present challenges to us as a nation, particularly when some persist in thinking we are a static mix of people, mostly of European background.

Ken Dychtwald, a psychologist, gerontologist, and prolific author, began speaking of this dramatic bigger-older-and-more-diverse
transformation of our society in the 1970s, calling it the “Age Wave,” a term that serves as both the title of his company and the title of his 1990 book.
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The Age Wave Dr. Dychtwald speaks of is not only the result of the post–World War II birth increase but also of the increasing life expectancy and declining birth rates of the last few decades. He foresaw that the aging of our society would have profound effects on nearly every aspect of our lives, with “no business, family or home [working] tomorrow as it does today.”
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Dr. Dychtwald’s predictions were spot on. Not only are we proportionally and numerically older than any society in human history, but we have, in the last hundred years or so, made a radical shift from one thing we as humans have believed and valued for centuries, even eons. Namely, we have marginalized our older population, placing them on the fringes of what we now consider important.