I do believe that the visible effects of the aging process as of late have something to do with the evolutionary cant that the earth has taken in just the last 20 or so years. Scientists have agreed that with the slowing of the earths rotation and a known slipping of the poles magnetic flux, the gravitational pull has deeply increased rather than decreased as was previously theorized. Drs. Krankendaskoph and I.M. Getrunken stated that in their study using the information given by a panel of plastic surgeons that facial and body reconstruction are on an all time up lift, especially among the baby boomers. Further proof of an increased gravitational pull was also noted by the good doctors while observing our young men and their continued difficulty holding their pants up above the bottom of their butts.
I wish @Bobby Cole was right, then maybe some brain could work out a reverse process so that as we aged we felt better. Leaving this world would be less fearful if we didn't have to worry so about health. I was married to a big healthy man. A Marine. A man that honor meant much to. Until he was 69, he had never had a cold, flu, or even a headache. Then a drama in his family totally floored him, and he lost his will to live. He sat in a chair and watched TV until he died three years later. I on the other hand was born with asthma, recieved a blow to my forehead causing a blood clot that put me in a hospital for nine months leaving me with seizures, was paralyzed from the waist down when my back was broken at nine and had to stay in a Shiners hospital for over a year, doing physical therapy. While there I saw many children dealing with life changing conditions. I learned that those that gave into the pain didn't do as well as those that learned to bare the pain. They said I would never walk, but they were wrong. I have had cancer twice. I've had both feet, both knees, both hands operated on, two hip to hip and two stem to stern abdominal surgeries, and you can throw in a heart condition that I've dealt with since I was ten. I just plowed my way through it, and did as I thought a normal person would. I quit plowing 15 months ago when my husband died, and for some reason I am getting better I think. (Except for the flu I picked up from one of the three kids I watched over spring break.) So I've come to believe that attitude accounts for at least 75% of our health, and that is one of the big reasons I hang out with you guys and gals. You peeps keep my spirits up. So remember, eat well, putter around regularly, and drop whatever is bringing your attitude down.
I'm beginning to believe that our species (humans) originally came from Mars. We seem to be more adapted to it's smaller size (less gravity) I think Mars must have been very far advanced so that they had the means to come here when Mars started losing it's atmosphere.
That might explain why we humans are obviously not suited for our gravitational pull as we grow older. Anatomically speaking, things do seem to lean more to the south as we approach an elderly age. But, what I have not found in the evolutionary processes of the earth is a period called the "caudexic" (idiot) era by which everything would have been "dumbed down" instead of a normal progression of intellectual ability. How indeed, have things gone from space travel from Mars to Earth to not knowing how to pull up ones pants?
I think it's only natural to lose technology in situations like that. What if earth today underwent a global disaster whereby only isolated pockets of humans survived. Those surviving would know about the technology that existed but would not have the means to continue it. There are ancient places on earth where technology seems to have been far advanced above what people in those areas have today.
Your life has been a very difficult one @Ina I. Wonder compared to my own charmed one, I would hesitate to say you brought all that on yourself, but the last words my wife said to me in the hospice, hours before she died of bone cancer were, "I did all this to myself didn't I" meaning the cancer.................... a question I was too upset to even contemplate answering her, but I do believe there is a grain of truth in that idea. As you say I do accept attitude can have a big effect on our health, certainly surviving what bad health has come our way..
@Terry Page , I wouldn't want be stir up an old and painful memory, but if it's at all possible, do you think you can explain what she meant. There were many things such as cigarettes that in our youth were not known as health hazards, but that didn't make it our own fault if later it produced health issues. My own cancer was an issue that my grandmother, mother, sister, niece, and myself all had by the age of 26, and we've all had bad arthritis as well. So I think many illnesses are just genetic. But how we deal with the pain in our lives is crucial to our everyday mental attitudes. Continual pain can make anyone depressed, grumpy, and some people even become bitter and nasty. That is one of the good things about our forum, when things get to be discouraging or too painful, we have friends that can understand. There are many days I use this forum to take my mind off of whatever, and it has also helped me deal with the loneliness that can cause a person's heath to derteriate. So stay positive and you could very well reach 90 in good health.
I think that in any time period the inhabitants weren't aware of BEING in that time period. The dinosaurs didn't know from the Jurassic Period; did people living in Victorian times call themselves Victorians? Likewise, we as a society will never know ourselves as "pants puller uppers".
Around the time that Pat died in the '90s there was a theory around, that you brought on cancer by your thoughts or emotions, so she felt she had induced the cancer through feelings of guilt, which I wont go into details here, but it was a sort of deathwish. My thoughts these days are that we all have a propensity (genetic) to develop this or that disease, but depending on our attitude to life, diet and general lifestyle, we can delay or avoid the onset of the disease. Cigarettes in themselves don't automatically cause lung cancer, but if you have a propensity to it, you are more likely to get it by smoking. I do believe the body is naturally self healing, but the mind and emotions can impair this mechanism and cause disease, as you say being positive and around happy people can all help. These are just my thoughts and ideas I have gained from being with dying people and reading around the subject, there is so much I feel we still have to learn about the mind to body connection.
I think we are aware that we are in a highly technological age, also narcissistic with mass communication, but also isolation. I wonder how we will be judged from a future age though, probably differently because of the changed point of reference.
@Terry Page , I do see what you are saying. I have been the care taker of several people in my family, and those that dwelled on their guilts or regrets seemed to suffer more than those that had delt with or let them go. I have been thinking a lot about these very things, and I find myself letting go of many hurts, guilts, and regrets. I see no use or need for them now. I think we need them in the first place because they help guide us toward our future. Doctors have said I wouldn't live throughout my lifetime, but many of what people call negative emotions helped drive me to fight. Now in my senior years I think it is a time for reflection and forgiveness towards myself and others. So I've decided to try and see what happiness and beauty there is still to come. I admit I'm tired of always striving and fighting, and now that I'm on my own I don't need to anymore. I do wish I was intelligent enough to understand more about the mind healing the body, but don't. All I've ever known about it is that if you didn't fight whatever bad situation you were in, you were going to loose.
Yes letting go is good Ina, acceptance is my mantra these days, I accept as much as I am able, to everything and everyone that life throws at me, I also let emotions be, I never push them away, I cry with sadness at times and laugh at life when I start taking it too seriously. In saying all this of course it's been easy for me to let go and accept, because I have had a charmed life and not experienced the suffering that you and others have endured. I have no idea how I would have coped with what you had to endure, your path has been a difficult one but you have survived with awareness and a forgiving heart, that is all too rare in this crazy world we seem to be living in. Take care
We're aware that we're in it, yes, but I think we also hesitate to call ourselves what we really are. As you said, the future will be our judge.
Yes to degree though I am only part of the whole, so I observe others as having certain traits but I guess I can't really see my own clearly, because I am in them. I do find myself spending a lot of time on screens, as others do and preferring my own company a lot as I age, so I am ready to admit to isolation/separation, also an obsession with gadgets. As an individual I don't feel a reluctance to admit more an inability to see the whole maybe.