How does it feel to be immortal? My answer might surprise you…

drparkRecharge Biomedical

highlander

For today, I am posting pictures for a bona fide #ThrowbackThursday (#TBT),  a meme that has become popular on social media for posting of old pictures.  The paradoxical thing is my older pictures make me look older than my more recent ones, where I’m actually older.

Because I have been taking adaptogenic nutriceuticals, I honestly now believe I am not getting older and have actually gotten physically younger.  (pause for spit takes

(Well, I will post my DNA evidence and functional biomarker evidence in subsequent posts for you non-believers.)

I am sharing these DMV photos from age 40, 45, and 47.  I currently host precisely four grey hairs on my body and they reside on my lower face. I was asked by a friend last night if I wouldn’t be sad knowing that my loved ones were going to pass away while I didn’t get any older?  I said no because if they were wise, they would eventually join the negligible senescence bandwagon and stick around.

 

2007 ehp

 

2012 ehp

 

2014 ehp

I am actually quite bemused by my own feelings about not getting older.  I assumed it would feel like the opposite of existential crisis, but it does not.

Heretofore, I always considered the human condition as being defined by the scarcity of time and the preciousness of years. I assumed that most people who age must experience existential crises from time to time, but this may not be true.


 

EXISTENTIALISM is not so much predicated on scarcity as it is the empiric, practical self-assignation of meaning as versus the theoretical or conjectural process of making meaning. And I believe that most aging people are quite happy with the metaphysical and epistemological foundations of their lives.

And the antonyms for CRISIS seem to fail what I am experiencing: blessing, breakthrough, calm, good fortune, peace, success, certainty.

That’s mostly because feelings can’t be fractally scaled-out like an accordion to experience the accelerated loss of loved ones or ennui with my fourth century of watching reruns of sports, TV premises, movies and wars.

I am aware that accidental death and dismemberment are always lurking because I have no reason to think that they wouldn’t. But unlike the premise of the “Highlander” movie franchise, thankfully, there can be more than one immortal and we don’t have to wield broadswords.

I guess I just feel … the same. Life has its own rhythm and it happens, as trite as it may sound, one day at a time. If we are healthy, sleep sends us home each night and with each new day we reboot the operating system and live out the programming.

“I die daily” 

Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:31

So what is my state of mind now that I’ve become this other kind of person?  This Übermensche or Homo sapiens eternalis?   Well, it’s really just the “same as it ever was.”  Same as it ever was?! …just like in this video by the genius, Asperger’s prophet and space man, David Byrne.  (I get chills at 1:20 when he does the thing with his arm because it reminds me of the shortening of telomeres and all that entails.)

 

Once in a Lifetime


In conclusion, the grass is green. Just like on your side of the fence. No better. No worse. But now, it’s like I’m playing chess in a Bergman movie without a clock and we’re competing for the “best  x out of 2x+1″.
seventh_seal_chess
“No offense but, you may have all the time in the world, but I have a job to do”

twister
Time isn’t holding up
Time is an asterisk
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Yeah, the twister comes
Here comes the twister
Same as it ever was…
 (from “Once in a Lifetime” by The Talking Heads)
                       (digital photo created by Corey Cowan)