Search Terms Prompt Thought About the Cricket and the Ant
If you had access to the Fight Aging! application log, you'd see - in between reams of blocked spam comments - a vast array of commonplace search terms from the loud, nonsense-infested "anti-aging" marketplace. All sorts of supplements and hormones, this, that and the other; if it doesn't work and someone, somewhere is trying to sell it as a way to retain some aspect of your youth ... there it is, in the Fight Aging! search log of requests entered by folk passing through or doing their research online.
Part of the reason that Fight Aging! and the Longevity Meme exist is to try to educate the folks perfoming these sorts of searches, to show them that they are expending their energy in the wrong direction. We are close to real, working anti-aging medicine, after all - with the right level of public support and investment in research. It all brings to mind nothing quite so much as the fable of the lazy cricket and the industrious ant - although this may be somewhat unfair on the crickets in this case. My point is this: if you find yourself playing the role of the cricket, looking for necessities at the last minute in any aspect of life, then you are likely out of luck. Nothing in this world happens without preparation, hard work and a sound recognition of what the future will bring. The winter of age-related degeneration approaches for us all - indeed, we have a very good idea as to when it will arrive. We cannot wait until aging hurts and incapacitates us to search for medicines that will repair the damage to our bodies and enable us to live longer, healthier, active lives. If we wait, if we laze rather than work to ensure that the right research is funded, then it will be too late in the decades ahead. We will suffer, become crippled, and die.
Do you save for your retirement? I'm sure you do if you're of working age. If you can look that far ahead for financial matters, why are you not also investing a similar level of resouces to ensure that you will not be crippled by age-related diseases? Be an ant. Don't be a cricket.