[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hubbertspeak7777777', '7')2? Ha! I probably won't even live that long. I'm 21 and I already have ulcers and am on the verge of getting diabetes. I also have a history of cancer and obesity in family gene pool. I'll be lucky to see 60.

[Chaparral]

Oh this is a no-brainer! I choose 80.

For one, life is good. There's no need for me to piss and moan about wanting to end it early.

For two: red wine, dark chocolate truffles, salmon etc are all consedered good (omega 3s, antioxidants etc). The produce from my garden kicks the ass of anything I've ever bought so that's not even a problem.

In moderation, caffeine, white wine, oysters on the half-shell, scallop sashimi, seared ahi with sesame and honey glace, blue-mackerel sashimi wrapped in fresh ginger, the occasional grass-fed filet.....all those things could be counted as part of a "healthy" lifestyle.

In moderation: scuba and free-diving: it's good fer ya! just shut up and dive!

Debatable: Italian sportscars..ummm. Can we have my attorney get back to the devil's attorney on this one?

Umm, I may be getting too old for this anyway: alpine mountaineering: Denali and Aconcagua were on the list, but.....These could be negotiated away for an additional five years.

Hell yes I'll give this crap up!!!!: Working 90 hour weeks, using an airless sprayer without a respirator or MIG welding without proper ventilation or thinking that I can lift the same weight that I could when I was 19? Umm, yes your devilness, I will give all of that up!!

Tell ya what your devilness, I'll cut back the Italian sportscar mileage to 1200 miles per year total if you'll extend the age limit to 90, AAAANNNNNDDDD, I'll promise never to do any alpine mountaineering again on any peak over 6000 meters, and I'll restrict all scuba depths to 150 feet, regardless of gas mix for an additional 5 years on top of the already negotiated 90.

[hubbertspeak7777777]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Chaparral', 'O')h this is a no-brainer! I choose 80.

For one, life is good. There's no need for me to piss and moan about wanting to end it early.

For two: red wine, dark chocolate truffles, salmon etc are all consedered good (omega 3s, antioxidants etc). The produce from my garden kicks the ass of anything I've ever bought so that's not even a problem.

In moderation, caffeine, white wine, oysters on the half-shell, scallop sashimi, seared ahi with sesame and honey glace, blue-mackerel sashimi wrapped in fresh ginger, the occasional grass-fed filet.....all those things could be counted as part of a "healthy" lifestyle.

In moderation: scuba and free-diving: it's good fer ya! just shut up and dive!

Debatable: Italian sportscars..ummm. Can we have my attorney get back to the devil's attorney on this one?

Umm, I may be getting too old for this anyway: alpine mountaineering: Denali and Aconcagua were on the list, but.....These could be negotiated away for an additional five years.

Hell yes I'll give this crap up!!!!: Working 90 hour weeks, using an airless sprayer without a respirator or MIG welding without proper ventilation or thinking that I can lift the same weight that I could when I was 19? Umm, yes your devilness, I will give all of that up!!

Tell ya what your devilness, I'll cut back the Italian sportscar mileage to 1200 miles per year total if you'll extend the age limit to 90, AAAANNNNNDDDD, I'll promise never to do any alpine mountaineering again on any peak over 6000 meters, and I'll restrict all scuba depths to 150 feet, regardless of gas mix for an additional 5 years on top of the already negotiated 90.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hubbertspeak7777777', '7')2? Ha! I probably won't even live that long. I'm 21 and I already have ulcers and am on the verge of getting diabetes. I also have a history of cancer and obesity in family gene pool. I'll be lucky to see 60.

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hubbertspeak7777777', '7')2? Ha! I probably won't even live that long. I'm 21 and I already have ulcers and am on the verge of getting diabetes. I also have a history of cancer and obesity in family gene pool. I'll be lucky to see 60.

[BlisteredWhippet]

I'll interject that the meaningful measure is the period of morbidity at the end of your life when the consequences of your bad habits come around to really impact your capabilities and health.

I am going to live past 100 years old. I could mention that I just "know" it. I could mention that I have many grandparents who lived to near or over that age. But the most meaningful aspect of this belief is the planning aspect. For instance I am planning on living to 100 years old, not just believing it. As such, I find people who take for granted their expectations of even nominal lifespan as if it is something granted them in the natural course of things. I know many people who are "planning" on this arbitrary age, something like 70s-ish, and this pushes their period of expected morbidity to around 50. Many of these people believe that their body is just naturally degenerating. They believe that somewhere right before 30 is the absolute pinnacle of physical health. They typically don't care about nutrition, health, exercise, and so forth. So their behaviors are right in line with their planning.

Like a soldier taking up chain smoking Marlboros in a foxhole believing his time is short, so many of us are deselecting ourselves.

I find the health/age concepts as put forth my Drs. Mehmet and Oz, in their very succinct books and their website, realage.com to be virtual fountains of youth. The transformative ability of the body is neglected in simplistic analysis which relies on a whole field of discredited and outdated information.

I would counsel anyone to rework their beliefs and planning unless they believe that smoking cigarettes, eating high glycemic index foods, and drinking is more important than living a pleasurable life. My impression is that, for most people caught up in the treadmill of modern life, such an idea seems impossible.

Humanity desperately needs wisdom and guidance. Old age is a job that needs qualified applicants. What we do not need is an army of wheezing, coughing, asthmatic diabetics who can only contribute pathetic truisms about the dangers of living life in the "fast lane". We need human beings that can speak authoritatively on truth and what the philosophers called "the good". If you spent your whole life as a hedonist only to cultivate a dying liver, you really will have nothing constructive to contribute to the idea of the "good life". Such people, I suspect, will be reviled, or at best, merely pitied.

I object to the poll question generally in its framing of a rather pointedly degenerate lifestyle as the "lavish" one. It seems rather "advertising-ish". It is a familiar characterization familiar to anyone who watches beer or meat industry commercials on TV and exposes a bias. So the poll question is flawed.

I am beginning to see the fundamental issue of self-care as an essential component of self-esteem. Once the brain understands certain things as physically, mentally, or spiritually harmful, you can only suspect that the continuance of a pattern of behavior based around self-harm to be inextricable from negative self-image or self esteem.

The psychochemical merry-go-round of being an EarthRaping motherfucker leads to heavy drinking, drugging and chain smoking, and more EarthRaping. The self-concept being fed here is self-annihilation. Jealously inverse logic is applied to the healing concepts: "They" are trying to take away my "pleasures".

Premature death and morbidity are self-fulfilling prophesies and I urge anyone conceptualizing their body and future in those terms to exercise some self-love. Yes, masturbation is a healthy alternative to drugs.

[I_Like_Plants]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', 'I') find people who take for granted their expectations of even nominal lifespan as if it is something granted them in the natural course of things. I know many people who are "planning" on this arbitrary age, something like 70s-ish, and this pushes their period of expected morbidity to around 50.

[Baldwin]

BW does have a point that we need older people who can pass down genuine, wholesome wisdom and knowledge to the younger generation. So does the apprentice learn from the master.

[hubbertspeak7777777]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Baldwin', 'B')W does have a point that we need older people who can pass down genuine, wholesome wisdom and knowledge to the younger generation. So does the apprentice learn from the master.

[Chaparral]

Gotta provisionally agree with the whippet again. A good many of my ancestors on both sides of my family tree lived to their 90s and this was in an era of economic depression and two world wars. I've always felt that I'd have a decent shot at the triple-digit mark assuming that I stayed away from alcohol, tobacco and the wrong end of someone else's firearms. Life for me is just plain enjoyable and almost always has been, whether I was slinging tires for six bucks an hour or trading commodity futures for somewhat more than that. I see some of the old guys at the gym and they're pushing 80 and still going strong. Heck, the guys that show up at the local coffee shop on their bazillion dollar bicycles are all white-haired and in their 70s and they've a decent little hill to climb on their way back home: I hope I've the same capability when I reach their age.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hubbertspeak7777777', '
')So you'd choose quantity over quality? I never understood why people made such a big fuss over living long.

[hubbertspeak7777777]

Well, with peak oil coming, I don't think any of us will live to see 100. After the crash, life-expectancies will have taken a nose-dive. If the average life expectancy is 75 now, what will it be post-crash when we have no medical technology and no steady supply of food? I'd say less than 40...

Also, I guess that I'm just different than all of you, I don't see life as special or sacred... I just see it as blah. Bland. Pointless. I don't necessarily want to die soon, but if that's the way things turned out then I wouldn't be to bothered by it. I don't hate life, but I don't love it either. If things got really bad, I wouldn't hesitate to end it all... after all, death can't be that bad.