When There Are No More Old People

When There Are No More Old People

“May you stay forever young” – Bob Dylan circa 1967

I have said it before, and I will say it once more; This is not a blessing.  It is not actually even inspirational.  If you kind of think about it … it’s more of a curse.  To stay forever-young means that nothing will change in your life.  Being young is wonderful, when it is wonderful.

When it’s not so wonderful, being young can be nearly horrific.  Mostly in that, if you accept the one then the notion that, “Only the good die young.”  Means that if you’re young and good, then you’re also doomed.  (I have written about this before.)  However, what I have not put forward is the concept that also arises from the juncture of both of these old accepted (mostly blindly accepted) sayings, is that if you manage to live past being young, then you’re apparently not worthy of Bob’s Blessing and you’re bad!

Not just a punch to the jaw, but a stick in the eye. 

Now, common thought is that people are living longer than ever before in history – as far as we know.  Which is kind of true.  In the wealthier and more developed countries, a lot of people are living longer.  Existing longer, anyways.  Let’s say, “not dying young”.  And this either means the world is filling up with not good people, or Bob’s Blessing is falling flat.

Whenever I bring this up, all my friends, local wits, (or a lot of them anyway) say things like, “He means young at heart”.  Yeah, “young at heart” and “youthful thinking”.  Not to be a cynic, but I say getting old is a hoot and, to me, a blessing.  Sure, stuff starts breaking down – like, well, my knees no longer allow me to play soccer … or use stairs, for that matter.  But, I have more patience allowing me to wait for the elevator.  (emoji smiley face). 

But let’s be honest, people are living longer than the days when disease and the feudal system, hardship and starvation, etc. were taking them out before they had the chance to get old.  You know, like dragons and falling off the edge of the world.   Now that we know better, nobody is falling off the edge of the world.  Which is a good thing.  However, did you know (Dear Reader) that in this country, big stores have had to widen their aisles because two Americans, in their current stature, cannot pass each other in the dimensions used for previous generations?

Yup.  That’s just one thing.  It would seem that with starvation, in this country, being a thing of the past, the actual food people are getting is not actually feeding anybody – in a healthy fashion, anyway.  Plus, it has been noted, that the determinable fertility rate of the current young has fallen so low that in reference to previous generations, they are all eunuchs.  The birth rate in the developed nations is plummeting.  Along with the options for opting out of having children is being employed by more and more young.

If the old are generous with their acquired knowledge (empirical wisdom), it can save the young from a lot of problems and mistakes.  Assuming the young would listen, which for millennia, they have not – in most cultures.  There are many existant conditions today, which have never existed before, however.  Sketchy knowledge, as in lots of bad science and poorly researched statistics, is spread instantly across the planet via (what else?) the internet.  And, a great deal of human effort goes into building even greater sketchy knowledge based on this (basically) really bad system. 

Talk about, “building your house on sand” (Bible reference).  I saw an article on Yahoo! News about how bananas give you belly fat!  A banana is fiber and water, with a few minerals and vitamins.  Mostly water, though.  How is water going to give you belly fat? I dunno.  If you look at the source of this kind of science data, almost always it turns out to be some wizardly funky miracle product company trying to convince you to buy their sh*t.  And, this wonder crap turns out to be 99% cornstarch (in lots of forms you won’t find on the periodic table) and 1% dextrose (derived from corn). 

All-in-all this means that the global population, at large, is not growing old.  They are staying forever young.  By this I mean, the young, of today are not getting bad knees and arthritis.  You can medicate away the arthritis and you can just replace knees – so even though they are getting weirdly obese, what used to break down is now just a matter changing the oil.  And, they are not gaining knowledge with experience. And, the knowledge they are holding on to is shaky knowledge, at best.  So they will have nothing in their life bank of empirical wisdom, of any real value, to share with those young to come.

Does this mean that the old of the future will slowly cease to exist?  Bodies will exist longer, being replaced by fewer and fewer new people and those that are left won’t have learned anything from that lengthened aging process.  What will happen then when there are no longer any old people?   

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Note: for the brave among my dear readers, I offer a new, separate but different blog:

Equations for the Joyous Mind

A study in a matter of theory and conjecture about human brain-mind development towards retaining ever increasing meta-cognitive development.  Based on Mathematics, and I refer to Base 3 Calculus. I wouldn’t expect a whole lot of people to give it a try.  But if you are in any manner open-minded and intellectually curious, the Math used is truly only a tool to condense the theory proposed. 

Just published  “Twelve Roses for Kathy – A journey on a motorcycle out of the darkness of bipolar disorder”