Apologism for Aging is Unproductive

Via the IEET: "Louis Begley vividly describes the last years of his mother's life, who had been a widow for the previous 40 years before her death. Begley lets us feel the pain in her joints and in her heart. He obviously sees aging as nothing but misery and loneliness. But I think he misses the point - he believes his mother's solitude is the reason of her woes, but it actually is aging, her declined health, pain and suffering - these are the real reasons of her tragedy. If she had been young she would have had no diseases, but only good looks and the opportunity to start over, but alas! she rots alive. Louis Begley caught the very overwhelming in its inevitability, horrifying feeling that it's all over, no need to buy new costumes. They will not be worn for a long time and they're not worth spending time and money. Mr. Begley was widely criticized - and by whom? Who do you think justified aging? The Executive Director and chief scientific officer of the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation wrote: 'Mr. Begley's bitter portrayal of aging is neither universal nor inevitable... Old age should never be measured by the metrics of youth. An adaptive rather than a maladaptive response to old age and even frailty is possible.' This is unbelievable. So wrong. In reality it's exactly the opposite - aging is universally debilitating and inevitable. While this type of words are coming out of the mouths of people who are the advocates for aging research, nothing good will happen. There will be no money for research to live longer in a younger body. And the reason is the faulty idea that aging can be healthy, productive, or enjoyable. It can't by definition."

Link: http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/konovalenko20120614

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