I love a scientific study that proves what I was thinking all along. In a recently published paper in the Journal of Psychology and Ageing, 800 people in Germany were tracked for more than 15 years. The researchers wanted to know two things — how does your opinion of your own ageing affect the outcome of your own ageing and second, what effect does your idea about generalised old age have on your own ageing.
They discovered that if you were optimistic about your own outcomes, you were much more likely to survive — as in not die in the time frame of the study. So if you believed you were likely to age well, you maintained a pep in your step and a buoyant approach to the whole “end of days” thing.
If you pictured yourself surrounded by family and friends and better yet, gainfully employed in solving murders in your posh retirement home, it would basically pay off and you'd outlive all the naysayers who imagined themselves as doddery misanthropes without a single memory left to knock about inside their empty craniums. Those Moany Myrtle’s were 35% more likely to die. In fact they did. Mind over matter is a very real thing. Your attitude counts.
The second question was more spicy; people who had cases of extreme ageism — as in, they were riddled with abominable stereotypes about the elderly and were horrified by their various decrepitudes and inexplicable tolerance for adult nappies and last season’s clothes, were also much more likely to survive into deep old age. Aversion therapy is also a thing.
It’s a study that the recent joyful reunion of world-class dictators must have consumed with a great deal of interest. There's nothing a guy won’t do to keep going indefinitely. But a guy who has the brilliant option of watching years of parades, fortified by global destruction-scale munitions and the propensity to squash all dissenters beneath the tips of his shiny boots like so many tiny ants ... that guy has extra-special reasons for wanting to live forever. That guy has a very rosy outlook for his own personal future — he won’t grow old like those other dolts — did you even see what happened to Biden? Pathetic.
But what to do? Until recently, the long-term prognosis for dictators was as bad as everyone else’s, fatally blighted by the brutal facts of biology. No amount of positive (or even really negative) thinking about the other antiquities was going to turn the dial on their allotted years. Now — overheard at the parade — they can all get transplants. That’s the word on the street, and not only from the harvested organs of political prisoners; labs are already growing pigs to purpose. Now there's talk of growing brainless humans for their organs (for ages I've suspected that this was already a reality, but I've kept my musings to myself).
Anyway, Putin is looking positively perky at the moment, Xi has a full head of gloriously vibrant hair and their young friend Kim is also in robust health. I'm sorry to report that these chaps will be knocking around the planet indefinitely. They're clearly already on transfusions from the placentas of superhuman babies, oxygenating their blood and getting the all the vampire facials they can handle. These guys look great. That’s why Putin is flying over Polish airspace and Xi has quietly eliminated all successors in the Communist Party. These guys are invincible!
Donald had better get a grip. I don’t think a tanning bed and McDonald’s is going to cut it in the longevity stakes. Bruises, veins, swellings, puffy eyes and rambling — so much rambling. He needs some serious interventions before he get’s left behind in the distant past. The whole sorry bunch will be reminiscing in 2089, sitting on deck chairs up at the space station, watching a parade of space drones and quipping “Alas, poor Donald, I knew him, Horatio — a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.”
This article was first published in Sunday Times Lifestyle.
