On Aging
“Aging is a disease that can be cured. It is barbaric and uncivilized, and with millions of people suffering from age-related diseases every day, there’s a moral imperative to find the cure.”
Aubrey de Grey is an English scientist claiming there is a 50% chance they’ll end aging by 2036. Back in August of 2023, he gathered folks from around the globe to discuss ways to, as he has interestingly dubbed it, Methuselarity. An obvious reference to the Biblical Methuselah, Methuselarity is that moment where one gains more than 60 seconds of extended lifespan for every 60 seconds lived. There are others working to extend and maintain their humanity here on Earth in different ways. Blood transfusions from young folks, anti-aging gene therapy, and having your corpse put into a deep freeze for a few hundred years. Folks who opt for the last option pay vast sums of money to have a shot at being brought back to life at a predetermined time with technology yet to be learned.
When I first read the story about de Grey and the “radical life-extensionist” movement inside aging science, I laughed. As I’ve given more time and thought to it, those chuckles have subsided and been replaced with sadness. These people (so infinitely valuable that Jesus died for them) are usurping His rightful place and trying to gain immortality on their own terms. Sadly, it doesn’t work that way. Job talks about our finite limitations in chapter 5. In the middle of his unimaginable grief and loss, he realizes his life, and all the others lost, are not his own. The Lord determines the limits we cannot pass. Now, I realize in your mind, I may have just kicked open a few different cans for debate, and as much as I enjoy those debates, I will simply say this: Knowing my days are numbered exactly brings a massive peace, it allows me to live this life fully alive every day knowing I will not be done until He says so. By the way, this does not free me up to be a total idiot. I don’t drive 80mph around blind curves for the fun of it!
At 48 years old, I am already tired of the sinfulness of my mind, heart, and body… every part of this broken world makes me yearn for the reckoning. I can hardly wait to step into immortality, and I surely want nothing to do with an earthly existence without end.
As always, may you find joy in the simple things of life, marlin