April's CR Diary

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July 5, 2005

It's An Uphill Climb

I can't sleep so I figured I'd write. Now don't worry, I haven't been awake since I last wrote to you... I went to sleep for a few hours and now I'm up again. Just woke up from a terrible dream in which a disembodied hand of Spiderman was reaching for me across the bed. Decided to have a glass of water and check in on the bids on the auction, and had a nice chat with a fellow Mprize donor who was up and learning how to use Skype.

I figured I'd take this opportunity to tell you something about me that you don't know, and that you may find upsetting, even horrifying. In fact, this may be the thing that makes you wash your hands of this blog forever.

I actually like Celine Dion.

Well, not Celine Dion in general, but quite a few of her songs. Enough to call it a pattern.

I'd like to make it crystal clear that I do not own any Celine Dion CDs, tapes or even records. I do not play Celine Dion in the house. I do not advocate Celine Dion in public schools. I never listen to that song from the Titanic.

But I do, when I am switching radio stations in my car, sometimes come by a Celine Dion song that I like, and then I listen to it.

I'm not even Canadian.

Actually, I hear that it's a myth that all Canadians like Celine Dion, and I know at least one Canadian who does not. Though it's possible that he's just never heard the right Celine Dion song. Like those people who say they don't like tofu but one can be certain that they've never had it done well. As opposed to well done. But I digress.

On my way to my dinner with my friend this evening, I heard the Celine Dion song that goes:

I can read your mind
And I know your story
See what you're going through
It's an uphill climb
And I'm feeling sorry
But I know it will come to you
So don't surrender...

I think it's about love, or trying to have a baby, or trying to win a Grammy, or something or other. But of course I was thinking about CR (because I am often and perhaps always thinking about CR) and I had one of those waves of hope and happiness and joy and love that frequently washes over me when I contemplate my CR journey. It's such an ongoing miracle to me that it is really possible to feel as good as I do now, and I find myself wanting to tell everyone in the world about it.

Whether or not it is a worthwhile effort to convert people to CR is something that MR and I discuss from time to time, and we agree that it's much more important that folks donate to the Mprize and support the search for the real cure for aging, rather than spending all their time and energy in an effort that can only get us a few years. Agreed, done, that's what we do. We are Three Hundred members. We ask people to donate to the Mprize.

At the same time, I can't help but think that the sense of empowerment that doing CR can give us can be step one in accepting that a future without age-related disease and disability is possible. It's so hard to wrap one's head around the good news that people seem to instinctively fight it, often with rather silly arguments. Making concrete, physical changes in one's own lifestyle, especially if you're one of us who has always struggled with weight and health issues, opens the door to belief that even more radical changes in the way the world works may be possible.

Now a lot of people don't want to change their diets at all, and most people won't want to do anything more than moderate CR, and we're okay with that. We're not out to convert anyone at carrot-point, and we're not starting the CR Inquisition.

"How many Calories did you eat today?"
"I don't know!"
"Did you avert your eyes at the elevation of the megamuffin?"
"No, I swear I did not!"
"Burn her at the stake!"

No, that would be bad!

That being said, I do like the way that Ray Kurzweil ties all the aspects of life-extension together in his book Fantastic Voyage, from CR to nanotech. Here's what you can do NOW, here's what we hope you will be able to do soon, and here's what we hope you will be able to do eventually.

There's something about feeling the CR difference right down to my cells that makes me believe that anything is possible. And it's a good thing because with the positive changes that have happened in my life since I've started CR, it challenges even the most cheerful of optimists to believe that it's all real.

Over the weekend I re-read a great book called Fear and Other Uninvited Guests by Harriet Lerner. She deals with all kinds of fear and anxiety, and she includes a chapter on shame about one's physical body. I remember the last time I read this book, in the months preceeding my conversion to CR, how I identified with this chapter. When I read it now, I had to stop and contemplate again how much time and energy the freedom from body hatred has given me. I've had to find other things to feel inferior about. Luckily, there are always aspects of my character that could use improvement, so I can still feel plenty bad if I want to. But not feeling bad about my weight and my body is an ongoing shock and surprise.

I think it's hard for anyone who has never been through the experience of feeling fat and unhealthy to understand why this is so important. Sometimes I hesitate to write about it because I'm afraid that there are some among us who will take me less seriously because I do talk openly about body image issues. But the issue is so important that I keep returning to it, both in my own life, and in my outreach to others.

"I can't help it, I want to convert people. It's who I am... I can't shut it off," I said to MR on the phone today. I don't think we were even talking about CR at the time, but wanting to reach out to other people about whatever is good in my life is so much a part of me that I can't seem to stop. I try not to be too obnoxious (unless it is strategic at the time :) but I do try to give people the tools to make a change if they want to make it.

More than anything, I hope that my example can make people believe that it is possible. That there is a way out of the hell of body hatred, and it's not fat acceptance and it's not giving up and it's not on the back of a cereal box.

It's cutting calories, eating food that really is healthy (as opposed to what people seem to think is healthy) and watching people around you stare in amazement as you seem to be getting younger.

That's really fun.

It's not easy. I was thinking today about a book I'd like to write about CR, and how I would start it with:

This book is not for the faint of heart.

If you want calming, cheerful chatter about how you should eat healthy foods in moderation, I have a list of books you can read instead of this one. This book is going to give you the hard, often depressing information about what you have to do if you want to extend your lifespan through the only method currently known to do so in mammals. What you do with that is your business. I can give you as much information as we have, and I can give you some tools that helped me change my life and that have worked for some other people. If you choose to climb on board this little train, you risk leaving behind a lot of things you may have really enjoyed.

If you choose not to climb aboard, you risk dying much sooner than you need to.

Think I'll get a book contract? Maybe not...

I believe in the power that people have to extend their own lives, and I believe they deserve the truth about what that will take, not watered-down recommendations that they might prefer to hear.

On the other side, there is a great deal of hope about what the future will bring. There is the possiblity of living to see the results of all of our hard work with the Mprize. There is the potential to still be on our beautiful planet, breathing the air and checking the mail when my car insurance money finally arrives.

I plan to get there with you. I have some changes to make. I've been holding steady at a nice, moderate level of CR that is quite easily sustainable for me for sometime now. I want to do more, and we know it has been and will continue to be a struggle. There is no magic bullet... though having MR around will be as close to one as anyone is likely to find. Breakfast salad... green tea... megamuffins... but I digress... and I'm making myself hungry which is the wrong thing to do at night!

It won't be easy, but I will not lack courage, and I will not lack support. I have a great deal of faith, not because of some pie in the sky when you don't die promises, but from my own cells telling me that they are repairing themselves. And from some recent blood work that I just got back. And from some cute little mice who are doing the best they can to stay alive and make their ad lib friends look bad.

We can do this. You, dear reader, are part of the we who can do this. Do not be led astray by promises of an easier path. Straight is the way and narrow is the gate. But it is you, not some divine plan or tribunal of vegetable chopping elders who decide if you will walk through it.

Will you walk with me out on the wire? Will you try a crazy diet and lifestyle that will make your friends think you're even weirder than they already think you are? That might make you skinny, cold, orange, obsessed with cooking equipment, and a much better writer?

Wait, that's the entry with the Bruce Springsteen quote. We're doing Celine Dion tonight. Let me try again:

Don't give up on your faith
Love (or in this case, life, which sure does help with the love stuff) comes to those who believe it

And that's the way it is.

Posted by april at July 5, 2005 11:10 PM

Comments

Posted by: Matt at July 6, 2005 1:05 AM

Posted by: Liz at July 6, 2005 6:15 AM

Posted by: MR at July 6, 2005 7:03 AM

Posted by: Dan at July 7, 2005 10:31 AM

Posted by: Judith at July 7, 2005 6:52 PM

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