Hello, Honorable Turtles! 🐢
Grab your favorite cocktail and pull up a barstool—let’s chat about something we turtles know a thing or two about: longevity. No, I’m not talking about how long that whiskey’s been aging (though, good on ya if it’s been a while). I’m talking about us, the shelled and unshelled alike, stretching out our years of health and vitality.
Why the Tortoise Beat the Hare and What We Can Learn From It
Remember Aesop’s fable about the Tortoise and the Hare? Well, it turns out the tortoise wasn’t just a clever storyteller; he was onto something. In the race for longevity, slow and steady might just win. A Galapagos tortoise can live up to 150 years! There are other notable overachievers. A bowhead whale can sip Arctic krill for 200 years, and Greenland sharks have been known to blow out 400 to 500 candles on their birthday cakes. If they can do it, so can we. It’s just a matter of figuring out whether it’s a hardware or a software problem.
The Bar’s Open: Exponential Technologies Are Serving
Imagine a bar where the cocktails on offer could add years to your life (Talk about happy hour!). Well, folks, science is mixing some fascinating concoctions with ingredients like AI, gene therapy, and cellular medicine. The aim? To serve us the nectar of extended healthspan. Down one of these, and you’re not just buzzed; you’re biohacked!
Is Longevity Escape Velocity the New Buzzword?
“Longevity Escape Velocity” sounds like a rejected name for a space-themed cocktail, but it’s actually the point where we’re adding more years to our lives than we’re living. Think of it as drinking a “Life-on-the-Rocks” that’s so potent, it adds years to your lifespan with each sip. Futurists like Ray Kurzweil and scientists like Professor George Church predict we’ll reach this velocity in the next 10 to 12 years. Cheers to that!
Heredity Vs. Happy Hour Lifestyle
Your grandma living to 100 after a lifetime of whiskey sours might not be the reason you’ll hit a century. Only 7% to 30% of your lifespan is pre-written in your genes. The rest is influenced by the choices you make. Like, whether you opt for a Martini or a Mojito tonight. (Just kidding! Kind of…)
A Toast to Your Health
Dr. David Sinclair from Harvard states that the concept of an age limit is basically a joke in the scientific community. “It’s a software problem,” he says, and we’re all about solving it. So, let’s raise our glasses high to this: In the future, 80 will be the new 40, and we’ll be sipping cocktails, sharing laughs, and perhaps outliving our turtle mascots.
Last Call: My Takeaway for You
As we ponder what we’d do with an extra 30 years (or more) of sprightly life, let’s not forget that much of it is literally in our hands. So, hold your cocktails high, my Ancient and Honorable friends! Toast to a life well-lived and to the many, many more years we’ll spend figuring out the punchlines to our long, beautiful stories.
Here’s to sipping cocktails at the fountain of youth!
Cheers! 🍹
– Dave Crabill, Proud Member of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Turtles 🐢
