Based on the figures compiled for life spans, these days we enjoy a longer period on earth than any previous generation throughout history. In only the past one hundred years of so, our average life expectancy has been enhanced by about thirty years. We are actually witnessing an adjustment or modification in the evolution of humankind that is of critical importance.
On its own, this revealing data makes a person think twice about having that second piece of cherry cheesecake! Only at this time, the scientific community is talking about how we could be closing in on the time when they will be able to enhance the current human life expectancy by twice today’s length. This is an awesome statement, if it was not for the fact that it has its origin based on pure fiction and hope.
The people at Guinness World Records have stated in various printings between the nineteen sixties and eighties have said there is no other solitary subject that is more obscured by vanity, deceit, falsehoods and purposeful deception than the extremes of longevity in humans.
Data And Deceit
The pundits utilize their vast detailed figures in order to persuade a youth driven yet aging society that it is in fact experiencing a prolonged life span. No doubt about it that they are rather willing to get across particular details, but the numbers can also be skewed and slanted to present faulty hypotheses. The problems result when people’s hope corrals them into fascination with research data from expert sources. This then is a critical problem not easily harnessed.
Numbers are not supposed to lie but the problem lies in the users of these figures that are also liars. The silver tongued rascal Mark Twain once said that “there are lies, damn lies and statistics.” Information used as a rule to explain progress made in life expectancy is deceptive. The equation is based upon less infant mortality in an attempt to show that individuals are experiencing prolonged lives. This is inaccurate information that makes for great political rhetoric and economic forecasting but is hardly ever truthful.
We must acknowledge that statistics are merely averages – not genuine numbers. The terminology “Life Expectancy” simply portrays the probable median age when an individual passes away. This means that when a report is issued that life spans have increased, it means only that based on averages, someone brought into the world today will survive longer than a person born in previous years, according to certain extenuating circumstances.
Looking Into The Life Expectancy Fairy Tale
At the beginning of the last century, children were experiencing death at very early ages, however, currently that situation has righted itself in a big way. Today’s kids easily make it to maturity, their extra time enjoying life means the median age at the time of death rises. This will skew the data when it is balanced against years gone by.
From the year 1920 up until today, American baby deaths have dropped from one hundred in a thousand to 10.9 in a thousand. Understanding this, during the same time period life expectancy is supposed to have increased up to eighty years from about fifty years. This difference of thirty years is what we are asked to believe.
Then there is this tidbit, based upon the numbers, when a mature adult in the year 1920 reached sixty years of age he could count on living a further sixteen year to roughly seventy six years of age. Currently, that sixty year old individual can count on living another twenty more years, until they are eighty years old.
This means that rather than having a thirty year rise, today we look at only a four year increase in life expectancy. The only real significant adjustment in the last ninety years has been the likelihood we would reach sixty years of age.
Stated a different way, theoretically, if fifty percent of the babies born in 1920 die as infants, and the other half lived until they were one hundred years old, the average life span would be an age of fifty years old. If all of the babies born in 2010 made it out of the infant stage and survived until they were eighty years old, then the average life span is then eighty years old. Initially it appears that those babies born in 2010 are surviving thirty years beyond the ones birthed in 2010. This statistic is only an average and reveals only that fewer infants are dying.
The individuals in our societal structure who last until they are eighty or ninety years of age are the sole age group that seems to add anything to the stats that are close to solid numbers. Everyone else would land in the group of averages, really only estimates, where there is no guarantee that any of us lives any longer life.
Age Reversed Enthusiasm
Humans are too easily taken in by claims of longevity due to the fact we hate thinking about the fact we will die one day. The thought of perhaps having a prolonged life or utilizing the many anti aging remedies available today has embedded itself in us due in large part to the media hype and promotion – though the reality is there is nothing available today that will turn about, halt or slow the advancement of age. We are left with only being able to fend off advancing age by reducing our behavioral or lifestyle choices that carry with them harmful repercussions and pressure toward aging. This means that we can build up or body’s defensive health posture of our body’s while we elevate our likelihood of living a healthful day to day existence along with a prolific old age. This is referred to as living to our maximum inherited possibilities.
When an individual does not buy into this realistic truism, they attempt to camouflage the exterior outcome of aging by getting cosmetic surgery, Botox or other forms of anti aging treatments or the dreaded verbal pretense. Only the closest to them are hoodwinked by the transformation from physical age progression and declines in health by these inelegant and potentially harmful methods.
These anti aging therapies reach into medicines and supplements which are prime bait for those naïve enough to believe the promotion from even respected medical voices.
Those in science and medicine have great sway over the thought processes of those desperate enough to buy into these anti aging concepts making the process even more distasteful. However, there are other hands reaching for the same wallets that are no less contemptible. They drill deep into the core of those who desire a prolonged life and they do so by less than sterling ethical means.
Life Extension Via Modern Medicine
How we die currently is vastly different from what killed us in the initial part of the last century. Rather than succumbing to transmissible disease, we perish in higher numbers due to degenerative diseases and illnesses. Notwithstanding, strong curatives and rash assertions do little to stop the quickness of the advancement of the aging process or the period when our bodies simply begin to fail us and breakdown. Modern medicine and clinical techniques might be utilized with varying degrees of success and failure to slow, reduce, circumvent or eradicate ongoing degenerative illnesses and their progress, but in the final analysis, all they have accomplished is extending the misery of the patient.
As a population we are scammed and sidetracked into contentedly accepting a process that is not living up to the claims being made. There seems to be no hope in sight as far as curing any diseases and that’s after spending tens of billions of dollars on research and study.
Our population is faced with unbelievable numbers of cases of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity and so many other harmful and potentially deadly diseases that obviously do not aid in the extension of our lives, who wants to think of extending the life of a chronically and seriously ill person?
Instead of pointlessly searching for ways and means of extending or reversing the advance of aging – or rejecting, even disguising our external indicators of age – we need to focus on accentuating an natural way of life and get rid of the reasons why we get sick. The value we hold for life will always be greater than living in severe pain or wretchedness. Living in this way gives us the best chance of sustaining a higher tier of physiological and emotional functionality.
When we believe that living a longer life only means living with disability and being dependent will only add to the coffers of major pharma and private health companies. The health industry and major media must begin to set a paradigm for the truth and accurateness of this subject matter and stop the deception and false information being presented to the public.
Aging with dignity and grace has a whole raft of valuable booty that goes along with it such as vast experience, knowledge, finely honed skills, wisdom, calmness and refinement. Our life’s greatest triumph will be when we accept with unavoidable strength of character the inevitable outcome of our life well lived and avoid denial. We need to be less concerned with how we are physically and steer clear of those thought processes that result in ill advised choices.
With any luck, by the time we reach the limits of our maturity, both physically and mentally, we will be able to add something to our community and family by putting others first and not being consumed by our own decline. In order to achieve this higher tier, we need to expend our available energy by maximizing our innate God given gifts learned through experience. This is how we live a long and vigorous existence and when we do start to breakdown, we can then hope for a painless and swift final phase.
Mon, Aug 23, 2010
Anti Aging, Immortality, Lifestyle, Longevity