A funny thing that happens when you get older is your body breaks down at the most inane moments. All the elders reading this are probably yelling “Told ya so! Told ya so! The sky is blue, not-so-young lady!” Knew this would happen. Promise. I respect my elders. I listen. I learn. But it took the actual cricks and creaks to make me believe it for myself.
Take my twenty-six-year-old left thigh muscle. I know what went wrong, even the exact place it got wronged. A few months ago, I was food running at my old restaurant job. This day was one of those special ones, rare and unholy, where the reservation system had bookings on both floors of the building. Sundays were pretty dead most of the time, so there was only one flight of stairs to worry about when I worked that shift. Down to the kitchen, up to the first floor tables. But not that day. Second floor was open for business. I had to haul my ass up and down two flights of stairs, fast fast fast, to serve the citizens of Boston however many sushi boats their hearts desired.
Haul I did. Plates and bowls, boats and bridges, drinks if the bartender needed help, takeout orders in my spare time. I bused too. Dirty dishes down, clean ones up. On and on and on until everyone cleared out and the bartender said not to worry, he’d close up on his own. Blessed man. Forever grateful. I fell dead asleep and woke up with the sharpest pain from groin to knee. This, well, whatever it is, muscle pull, ligament snap, don’t ask me I’m not a doctor!, this pain was specific. A pain that brought my mortality in sharp relief, in all its flimsy glory. Walking was fine. Sitting was the problem. If I sat on a hard surface or, even worse, did my usual stretches, the pain would jump out. A latent scare until it pounced, shocked the system, wouldn’t let me get up, get out, get going.
It’s healing. Day by day, week by week, second by painstaking second. Still scares me even as it mends. The limits of my body have crystallized harder. A sharp jerk to the right meant nothing to my child limbs; that same jerk now puts me out of commission, chains me to the slowest healing process imaginable, makes me wonder if this is it, is it all downhill from here? One day insatiable, the next day immobile. Thoughts and prayers please.
This bout of injury led me to a sliver of empathy for, of all people, Bryan Johnson. If you know you know, and I KNOW you think I’m crazy right now. Hear me out. If you don’t know, Bryan Johnson is a wackadoodle tech entrepreneur whose sole quest after making his millions is to live forever. In the name of immortality, this man has executed the following:
Harvested his son’s blood
Tried “penis shockwave therapy”1
Takes 100 supplements a day
Sells a pack of olive oil bottles titled “Snake Oil” for $75
He’s not totally crazy. Well. Scratch that. He’s fucking batshit. He is! Who harvests their son’s blood so they can live forever? Weirdo behavior. Hate to say it, especially after all this, but still I…get it? Get him, I mean. At least, I can identify with his clearcut anxiety. If someone could guarantee that intaking 100 supplements would heal my injury in an instant, I think I’d take them. Every day. For the rest of time. Preventative measures, you know? I’m already doing them to ward off the side effects of old age as long as possible. What is daily yoga and long walks on the beach if not manifestations of the existential dread that comes with a lifespan on Earth?
Aging is a horrifying process to undergo physically, mentally, and emotionally, most especially in the United States. Americans are not built to wither. We are a country that strives for innovation above all else. New new new. If it ain’t broke, fix it with five million accessories from Home Depot. Feeling sad? Wrap your face up for a Morning Shed - don’t want that depression to cause any frown lines! Optimize your caloric intake through a meal kit delivery system. Or a Sweetgreen salad. Keep it moving. Don’t stop to think. There’s no social safety nets waiting at the end of the line. Grind to make ends meet, to amass your retirement fund, to secure your future. You can sit when you’re geriatric. You can sleep when you’re dead.
Is it any wonder Bryan turned out like this? With an all-American upbringing, plus a dash of Mormonism, combined with the fact he sold Venmo for $800 million, of course he’d get to this point. No one’s powerful enough to tell him no, or at least help him come to terms with the fate that befalls all of us. I mean, the exploitative systems we live in has allowed this man to spend two million dollars per year on his intrusive thoughts. Coming up with crackpot schemes to prolong his life, setting up ridiculous campaigns to draw followers to his cause, selling products that will do NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING to prevent the inevitable.
Death! Death! Hallelujah.
Looking at him more closely, or “analyzing his face shape” as Charli XCX would say, this man doesn’t just seek the physical perks of immortality. No sickness, no muscular deterioration, etc. What he pursues is an aesthetic project bound to youthful beauty standards, maybe more so than peak performance. I mean, just look at this quintessential before and after pic.
Like sir, this is not just health and wellness we’re talking about. This is plastic surgery!2 You got Botox! You get away with self-obsessive compulsions because you’re rich! Ugh. Not to mention his his body looks sculpted in a knives-out way, not a hit-the-gym way. What forty-seven-year old looks like that without body modification? I would’ve thought, being a man and all, he could become the modern day Nicolas Flamel3 while looking like his before picture. But in all our warped brains, youth doesn’t just represent vitality. Vitality is youth. Wrinkle-free skin chiseled like marble is the real indicator that you are healthy, that nothing can hurt you, that nothing will break you. He can’t trick his followers with his scams unless he yassified himself first. That is the only physical proof that matters in his quixotic journey.
Am I any better? No. Obviously not. I relate to this nutjob, remember? I’m as self-obsessed as the next guy, worrying about my own aesthetic project of eternal youth. Over the summer, I was walking around Washington, D.C. with my brother and his girlfriend. Playing the tourist. Having a grand old time. Sunscreen-less. SUNSCREEN-LESS. Gasps! Chills! Cue the organ music! It’s not that I’m anti-sunscreen. I love protecting my skin from cancer. Great stuff, let me tell you. But I had just come from my fifth of five work trips in about six weeks, all endured under hot summer skies.4 I’d had my fill of caked undereyes and sticky skin. One day sans protection would be fine. One day wouldn’t kill me.
Haha! Idiot alert. I walked around D.C., a notoriously humid city, in direct sunlight, for hours. Wearing a tank top no less. No coverage. The ensuing burn? Massive. Painful. A red warning sign for anti-sunscreen activists everywhere. I spent the next day in the cool of the Smithsonian art museums burnt to a crisp. Lines from the tank top imprinted onto my skin. So embarrassing. And it stays! Stays on me all these months afterwards. Under the fluorescent light of my bathroom, I can still see the ghost of the burn, the new freckles on my shoulder, the white crackles that remain from the severity of the mark.
Concerned? Yes. For cancer, yes yes, very concerned. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t also worried about how this section of my body would look as I aged. Should’ve listened to the skincare evangelists, slathered up in SPF 100, reapplied every eighty minutes. If I had I wouldn’t be so nervous. Wrinkles, sun damage, age spots. Body horror at its finest. Oh how I love to embrace conventional beauty standards.
Where do we put this anxiety? Me, you, Bryan if he’s still reading this?5 I don’t think it can go anywhere. Humanity bows to the all-encompassing fear of death. Entire movements, religions, epochs have been defined by this fear. You think Cillian Murphy created the nuclear bomb out of ideological thin air? Think again. This anxiety is probably the only internal mechanism that ties the whole human race together.
But maybe things could be a little different. More thoughtful. Or relaxing. Not pure, hard panic. Americans could have a healthier approach to our eventual demise if our culture didn’t obsess over productivity and youth so damn much. If we didn’t let nubile bodies reign supreme over the wrinkled, the broken, the immobile. If we took care of ourselves and our communities. Cooking nutritious meals together. Throwing parties to get some movement in. Recognizing that the elderly still hold a valued place even though their physical capabilities are limited/ Wouldn’t that be nice? But everything nice is usually a fantasy. Or requires societal upheaval. So we’re stuck watching the Bryans of the world experiment on themselves and others, their epic quest boiled down to self-absorption and stress.
Bryan might get mad at me for saying this (sorry buddy) but I’m kind of tired of being young. I feel smarter, happier, stronger as I age. Stronger! Can you believe it? But it’s true. God forbid I stay the same as when I was seventeen. Or twenty-three. Whatever the new threshold of vitality is, I’m not sure anymore. Why shouldn’t my face, my body, my whole self reflect the obstacles I’ve overcome? The changes that have made me better, made me more me? In my not-so-old wisdom, I’ve realized that what I strive for is inner peace. An acceptance for what I am, and how that “what” constantly shifts as life goes on. Basically. I just want to chill. To acknowledge that fate doesn’t have to inspire terror, it’s just a fact of life that makes the happier moments sweeter.
But I would like my thigh muscle to function properly until the end is nigh. Don’t think I’m asking too much with that.
What I’m Reading (no watching but about to queue up something fun as soon as I hit send)
The Windfall, Diksha Basu
It’s fine! A pleasant, quick read. The satire doesn’t bite and the characters are pretty one-note. But again. Vibes over plot. And that’s completely fine.
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Like 30 pages in and I think I discovered another favorite author?????? Obsessed with his prose. Detailed, vivid, and lowkey gossipy? Plus naming the messiest character after yourself is kinda hilarious ngl. Thank god it’s one of those classics that actually holds up and is not just pedantic bullshit or overwrought nothingness. Excited to continue!
googled this (stone me for my sins) and it's basically a silly description for erectile dysfunction treatment --> https://healthcare.utah.edu/mens-health/conditions/erectile-dysfunction/shockwave-therapy
where are the youtube video essay girlies when you need them? gotta figure out what he got. buccal fat removal? fox eye? BBL perchance? the possibilities are endless
thank you harry potter for that original reference
ok, one day was rainy. but the rest were sunny!
seems like the kind of guy who turns on Google alerts of his name
loved this lol