There’s a huge difference between living to a healthy 85 and having major cognitive / physical issues at 65 and symptoms well before then. Yes you’re guaranteed to have significant physical decline by 85, but the baseline isn’t static you can still be more physically capable than an un athletic 30 year old.

So we’re talking roughly an extra 30%!

it is concerning how many people do not understand the VAST difference in quality of life and physical/mental ability over the age of 50 between someone who takes decent care of themselves and someone who doesn't. So many times I've heard people, in the face of making healthier choices, respond with "why would I want to live longer anyways, I'm going to be old and decrepit!". Very sad perspective.

tw - drugs, addiction, overdose, severe illness, death tldr - I was this dude until I got to see how things turned out for someone with the same attitude roughly 30 years older than me

I was one of those "Here for a good time, not a long time" people in my twenties. Booze, drugs, parties, shows, "Why would I wanna skip all of this just to go to the gym and pretend to run?" After a few years of partying like that you assume the hangover is the worst thing that'll happen and you'll bounce back after two days. But the universe had a gift for me: my uncle, who was about 35 years older than me, had the same attitude. I watched his addiction progress from "he just likes to have fun" to "sure he drinks too much but underneath it he's a good guy" to a point where his family was making him sleep in the garage. The whole time this was happening he was "Here for a good time, not a long time".

It took him over a year to die, once they determined that the liver and kidney damage was beyond mitigation or repair. I got to take care of him, as I lived with my mom (his sister) and his nuclear family had kicked him out after he pulled a gun on his daughter for coming home pregnant. In that year, he lost motor control, couldn't walk and could barely talk. Once I watched him try to tip his head back to drink from a glass of water and his head just kept going backward until he fell over. Only one of his three kids bothered to visit him. It was the one he pointed a gun at. He forgot her name.

Did you know that organ failure has a distinct smell to it? It's ammonia and engine coolant, saccharine sweet but with just a hint of rot. Our whole house smelled like that for the last few months. Those miasma months were spent helping him to the bathroom and explaining to him that he's at Vicki's house, Vicki is his sister and no he can't take his truck and go to the bar because he doesn't have a truck anymore and his license is revoked. He spent the last week of his life in someone else's bed, howling in pain and terror.

I, otoh, got my shit right. I'm not entirely sober but neither do I party like I used to. The bargain I made with myself is that I can do drinks with friends a maximum of twice a month, and I can't ever do drinks alone. I've been able to stick by that for several years now, even after the overdose death of my brother (who was another one who never saw the sense in anything other than maximum immediate fun). I take two fifteen-twenty minute workout breaks per day, one for weights and one for cardio. I've lost 25% of my body mass, I can bench press my dad and I'm actually having a much better time than when I was having a good time all the time. He was in his fifties when he died. I'm 40 now, and while he had already started his decline at 40 I'm stronger and more capable than ever. And I don't even have to tell myself "no" very often. Usually it's just "That's enough for now".

Maybe one day I'll be old and decrepit, but I won't be middle-aged, decrepit and hated by everyone I know. To me that's such a good deal I can't imagine why anyone would turn it down.

wow what a powerful story - thanks so much for sharing. I'm glad you have been able to turn something horrible into a motivator for yourself. May your story do the same for others so they don't have to rely on dealing with such heartbreaking circumstances. RIP to your uncle.

>My illusion of being in control of your destiny was shuttered when Jack LaLanne - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_LaLanne died at 95.

Can we deep dive into that statement? To me, at a glance, LaLanne's life looks like one that began out of control, then he took control of it and through doing more or less what everyone recommends (high protein, high fiber diet low in sugars and carbs with a bunch of exercise every day) he got exactly what one would expect (a life well past the mean life expectancy and with a relatively high quality of life even into his 90s, even being able to do his normal workout routine before he died). Unless you took him literally when he said "I can never die" that feels like an overwhelming confirmation that diet and exercise are key parts of a long, healthy and happy life.

I personally do not find the idea of endless life in this world appealing at all. I don't even get the desire to live to 100+, nevermind 200. I tend to think that the 'longevity desire' is prompted within oneself when one is not living according to whatever-it-is one thinks one should really do. The rat race is compelling sure, one needs money etc, but that is not the entire purpose of life. Perhaps some seeking/introspection is needed to make life meaningful.

Happy people are generally OK with going anytime, grateful for every moment and experience and only want to have closest ones taken care of. Unhappy ones, especially when its something deep and hard or impossible to tackle, want more and more, like they could somehow fix things in future or cover them up enough to finally arrive at that point they'll never arrive anyway.

Project it to some extremes and its easy to see why sociopathic dictators and billionaires (which most if not all of them are) would love to see significant life prolongation, of course only theirs. One of the biggest threats to near future mankind as it is IMHO, imagine 300 years of rule of pos like puttin' for example.