Prologue
Hi, fellow human being.
If you're on this website, I assume you're wary of aging, like most human beings currently alive, especially women. I have been wary of the effects of aging since my teenage years. As human beings, I'm sure that we've all seen our loved ones fall ill, losing their beauty, memory and even bodily autonomy only to eventually pass away.
Please remember that you're not obligated to 'stop' aging. You don't owe anyone your beauty and a true partner would not require you to always look amazing and act healthy to keep around. If you're dedicated to combat the wheel of time, please do it for yourself. This should be a battle between you and time, not a proxy war between your body and people's expectations.
Personally speaking, I am wary of aging for a few practical reasons:
First and foremost, it is beauty. I know it would sound shallow, but it is a hurdle for many and not easily overcome. I want to be, and stay, beautiful. Regardless if it feels right for society to equate beauty with youthfulness and whether it is just a negative effect of ageism, we cannot quickly change the part of human psychology that idolizes youthfulness because it stems from evolution spanning many millennia. (Samuel, 2023)
The second reason is health. Our health would start declining from as early as in our 30s (Nazario, 2023) and it goes down from there. With the decline in health, we tend to have less energy to enjoy daily activities in life and are often even troubled by chronic illnesses and discomfort. To make matters worse, our bones and organs would become fragile and more susceptible to injuries. (Nazario, 2023) Many elderly people experienced agonizing pain and arguably worse, in the absence of sanity, memory or a working consciousness, before their eventual passing. I have heard elderly people describing their experiences as 'worse than death' not so infrequently.
The last reason stems from the second: my dignity. It gives me shivers as I imagine being bedridden and solely relying on others' help to move, eat, urinate, defecate and even clean my own body, it is terrifying. Now, what if the illnesses take my sanity away and make me a completely different person? For my current age, it might seem vastly too early to be worrying about, as I have not spent many years even as an adult. However, if we do not anticipate the iceberg and steer from afar, we will not know when it will be too late to evade the inevitable.
So... How to evade aging? The bad news here is, that we don't have a cure-it-all solution for aging yet. Aging is not a traditionally defined disease condition. It is simply a phenomenon comprised of a multitude of factors. To tackle the effects of aging, we need to be aware of different factors of aging, including evolutionary and damage-related factors.
Here's some links to useful articles to understand aging:*
Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageing
WHO https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ageing-and-health
And for those who are looking for healthy habits to age more healthily:*
Mayo Clinic https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/healthy-aging/in-depth/aging/art-20046070
Anthology 22 is for those who wish to stay keen on the battle to extend youth as much as possible and are willing to try out experimental methods. I will try my best to research the sources before we make each post but since many of the new methods are not well-researched and trailed yet, I cannot guarantee their effectiveness. Please do your own research and evaluate the risks and benefits of each method before taking a step.
I possess youth now, and I am fighting for it to stay.
Even if it is a losing battle, I am not going down without a fight.
X. Ally Zhou
May 10, 2024
References
Samuel, L. R. (2023). The psychology of beauty. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychology-yesterday/202311/the-psychology-of-beauty
Nazario, B. (Ed.). (2023, May 8). What’s normal (and what’s not) as you age. WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/story/what-to-expect-aging#:~:text=The%20process%20starts%20somewhere%20in%20your%2030s.%20Cells,in%20how%20you%27ll%20feel%20during%20your%20twilight%20years.
* Linked articles are from external sources and do not necessarily reflect my personal opinion or recommendations.
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