How People Grow "Old"

The obvious way to tell a person's age and condition -- is to look at the most obvious and visible parts of their body -- which is the head, hands and feet -- where the circulation is likely to be the poorest, even while containing the most vital and important faculties of the body -- the senses located at the head (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, thinking), hands (grip and touch), and feet (balance and locomotion). They are usually the first to go -- and that is why they are usually reliable indicators of age and condition. Only an exceptional few belie the usual trajectory of this deterioration with age.  Many people are not aware of this -- so commonplace is it in the older people -- characterized by this predictable obvious pattern of deterioration.  For the few who show no such deterioration at these extremities, it is very difficult to assess their age -- because they defy the predictable and expected pattern.

Along with the deterioration in appearance is the lack of movement at those extremities  -- which are actually designed for movement rather than the immobility they become with age.  Many fail to notice this lack of movement (animation) because they are not observant -- and may even have been taught as children, not to pay attention to these things in others.  And so they fail to pick up important clues for why it happens in older people generally, and even to younger people who lack those articulations.  They simply never think to move in that way -- although they can.  On the other hand, a very small segment of the population, train themselves to move skillfully and masterfully in those ways most don't even think is possible, and may have even been advised that such movements are dangerous and should never be done -- even while millions of people in the world may do it routinely up to the days they're still capable of doing anything.

One of the most common examples is the simple squat-sit -- done by many indigenous people in the habit of moving frequently until the day they die.  On the other hand, contemporary society produces and encourages many to move as little as possible -- and even requiring the assistance of motors or others to shift them from one position to another -- they've grown so unused to moving at all, with no plan or intention of improving those capabilities from here on out the rest of their days.  One would expect them to become increasingly less capable  -- with no program for ensuring they maintain those capabilities and movements.  The nerves making such movements possible, are no longer fired, let alone systematically exercised for improvement.  Many are convinced that is even the preferred way to be -- to do as little as possible for themselves the rest of their days.  Yet who is going to do it for them?  Maybe their children or grandchildren, or as is becoming increasingly the case, a paid caregiver.

The furthest thought from their mind, is that they should become increasingly self-reliant and independent -- as though that is only what stupid people do -- because they have not figured out how to make everyone else do everything for them.  And though such a life of idleness and uselessness are highly fashionable, as a practical matter, that is not the best way to go -- and go one surely will.  So a lot of this premature demise is cultural -- and popular, rather than the best nature has evolved.  It requires individuals to take it to the next level -- just as it always has been.  The struggle for survival does not end at 40 or 60 -- but remains a lifelong challenge as long as each individual lives.  It just becomes more individualized -- and personal.

What worked for most at 20 -- may not work for anybody at 80.  It is far more likely to be the case that what works at 80, works for most at 20 -- rather than vice-versa.  Ironically, it is easier to see what works at 80 than what works at 20 -- because there are fewer confounders to weed out.  Participation rates conveniently weed out those who are still in the game -- from those whose best are far behind them.  Of course, some still talk about their youth as the prime of their lives -- rather than their present being the summation of all their days.  Obviously, that requires a wholly new orientation and meaning to our lives.  Is it half over, or only half begun?  That difference in attitude may be the most significant marker of the new age from the old one -- and whether life gets better, or disintegrates.  Of course the last to know, will be those who should know better.

They are too full of the old knowledge -- and not the one being discovered and created.  It's always been that way.  The harbingers of the new, have never been embraced by the defenders of the status quo -- no matter how dysfunctional and hopeless things were.  A certain death was preferred to any unknown yet to be discovered and revealed.  Those are the great moments in human consciousness  and evolution.  Not simply more of the same in a slightly modified form.  An entirely new way of being must emerge.  It's always been that way.  That is the evolution of life.