Sunday Comics: Aging

Today I am Older

Today I am older

And closer to death.

I can feel the clock ticking

With every breath.

(I can’t find a third word

To rhyme with death)

It was my birthday today.

It’s not that I’m sad about

Aging. In fact,

The alternative sucks,

To be quite exact.

So I’ll take getting older

Over getting whacked;

Living’s better than not any day.

Cartoon: Life

TODOs

I got progressive lens glasses yesterday. Let's see how I'm doing on life's checklist:

Yep, nearly done.

The Facebook Effect

Here's a poem to celebrate that moment in time when your mental image of someone from thirty years ago meets an online image of them now.

I call it the FaceBook Effect, the turning point when you click on a name in a Facebook "Friend" request, remembering them quite clearly in the mothball crates of your fossilized memory, and then encountering the reality of them now. And then realizing that they're doing the same with you.

Or for the video impaired:

The Facebook Effect

I knew a girl in high school,

Beautiful, beyond my reach.

And when she was in class with me,

My mind you could not teach.

I stared at her, until she looked,

And then I glanced away,

For I was so embarrassed that

My gaze just could not stay.

We went through school for four long years,

Together, yet apart.

I never got the nerve to tell her

What was in my heart.

I never spoke of love, or lust,

Even even of a crush.

I only had to think of her,

And then I’d start to blush.

So I just kept it to myself,

And let her go her way,

Thinking that perhaps we’d meet

Some far and distant day.

And then I’d tell her what I thought,

And hope she felt the same,

Or just be happy if she could

Remember my first name.

I’d tell her that I waited for her

Lo, these many years,

How fate had brought her back to me...

And then I’d dry her tears.

She would, of course, remember me,

And say she’d felt as much,

And then we’d stop our talking and

Our lips would gently touch.

And so I was amazed to see,

Within my FaceBook site,

A Friend request from this old flame,

Just the other night.

I paused a moment, wondering,

If it was really her,

Or maybe she just shared the name,

Coincidentally conferred.

And so I clicked upon her name,

Which took me to her wall,

So that I could see her pics

And from them make a call.

She lived these years, lingering,

Upon my mind, inert,

Pretty, fresh, and full of life,

And terminally pert.

And then I saw the photos which

Were taken of her since.

This was the very person,

Though the pictures made me wince.

Where I recalled some dimples,

And a quiet, pretty smile,

I now saw teeth that had been stained,

By tobacco, wine, and bile.

And in my mental image,

I could still recall her grin,

But in the photos on the page,

I saw an extra chin.

(Or two). In fact, the only feature that

Reminded me of her,

Were the sparkling eyes, which now peeked

Out from eyebrow fur.

The wrinkles were to be expected

(All of us have those),

But the lesions, sores, and pustules

Covered her from head to toes.

At least she still had lots of hair

(I’d loved her golden tresses),

But most of it sprang from her nose

And hung down to her dresses.

Yes, this was the same old girl,

The one from my old dreams,

But time had had his way with her,

Instead of me, it seems.

And so I went back to my page,

And made my Friend election;

I pulled the menu down and clicked

“Not Now” for my selection.

When I am King: Space Exploration

When I am King...

Everything will have its place.

I used to believe the common misconception that death-by-old-age happened because various medical problems simply add up over time and overwhelm the body.

I know now that this is wrong. Death, instead, comes not from the body, but from the mind - it’s confused and overpowered by this constant, nagging question: where do we put all of this stuff we have? Eventually, it simply gives up and checks out, because there is no good answer.

The longer we live, the more we accumulate: hand-me-downs, purchases, gifts, 2-for-1 deals, important mail that we should hang onto for some unspecified time. With each new thing comes the associated items that we have to find a place for: the old thing that it replaces, the manual and associated paperwork that came with the new thing, and the cords and extra parts which the new thing will need only after we throw them out (so we keep them forever, stashed in places that we will never find again).

And then there are the boxes, tons and tons of boxes. These things always come with boxes that are perfectly tuned to the size and odd shape of the new thing. And we know that we may need to pack the thing up and return it, so we’d better keep the boxes. Forget the fact that we’ve never returned anything we bought by mail before; there’s always a first time, and it will come only after we’ve chucked the box and have no way to pack the item up.

So we hang onto this stuff and have to figure out where to put it. We put the extra, obsolete version of the thing in the bedroom. Or the bathroom. Or the kids’ rooms. But soon we run out of those options. Some people have more kids just for this reason, but are then faced with the problem of where to put all of the children.

We put the cords and extra parts in indistinct piles of other cords and parts in places that we can never find again. When we do stumble upon these random objects, we cannot remember what objects the parts go with, which explains why we always have hundreds of power adapters spread throughout the house, but can never locate the one we need for the gadget that needs it.

We put the boxes in the attic. Or the basement. Or, lacking these spaces as we do in California, we put them in the garage, or the corners of rooms, or pretend that they're extra bedrooms for the smaller kids, or anywhere we can find space.

We always attempt to play the Russian doll game with the boxes, placing smaller ones inside other, but find that somehow the boxes are never proportionally sized. There is a Theorem of Box Collections that states that for any two boxes A and B, exactly two of the dimensions of A must be greater than those of B. So any box that fits inside another must, therefore, stick out the top. There is a related Theorem of Expanding Packing Pieces that states that the form-fitting styrofoam modules that come with a box take up more volume when the packed item is removed than they did originally, guaranteeing that the Theorem of Box Collections is moot, since there’s no room inside the box for air, much less another box.

Soon the storage spaces of our living areas are filled with these smaller, cardboard storage spaces. So we have nothing but space in these rooms, but they are filled to capacity and we cannot fit any more.

Meanwhile, our families are having storage problems of their own - parents downsize houses or go on regular purges of your childhood memories. But rather than actually get rid of things they cannot part with, they ship it to you. And since it was a gift, a family heirloom even, you get to figure out where to put it. And the box it came in.

The problem only gets worse as we get older because we just keep getting more stuff. And the stuff keeps getting more complicated. I bought a stereo component 20 years ago that came with a box. That’s it - just a box. I bought another to replace it recently that came with a manual, a DVD with the manual, wires for all possible combinations of audio and video input and output I might possibly need (assuming I was building a professional broadcasting station), a remote, stickers, labels, boxes inside boxes, and carefully contoured styrofoam packing modules. Where do I put all of this stuff?

This is the largest problem weighing upon the mind of the aging, increasingly the older and more laden-down they get. Eventually, the mind simply gives up and the body takes it from there.

When I am King, we will explore space. That is, we will explore the galaxy, looking for more space. This will not be for the traditional, ridiculous purpose of expanding human knowledge, or achieving scientific goals, or boldly going where no one has gone before - it will just be to find more space to put stuff. It will be a mission to find a really large closet.

Obviously, the stuff that we put there will not be very accessible. But the reality is that we never actually need these things - these boxes, components, and hand-me-downs never get used, or even looked-at again. Instead, we just keep them for our own peace of mind, so that we know that if we do need them, they still exist somewhere.

Once we have solved this problem, people will be happier and more relaxed and everyone will live much, much longer.

Then we just have to figure out where to put all of the people.

When I am King: The F*ckit List

When I am King...

Everyone will have a f*ckit list.

As people are studiously trying to compose their Bucket Lists, I’m working on my own version: the F*ckit List.

The Bucket List (and yes, that token Wikipedia link sends you to a page about the movie, because Wikipedia has the good sense to not grace the bucket list trend with an entry) is the latest fad of mortality, where we’re supposed to think about, and theoretically do, all of the things that we want to do before we escape this mortal incarceration. Kilamanjaro, Everest, getting a date: all of our impossible dreams that we really could accomplish with enough focus, drive, and roofies.

But honestly - do you really want to climb Everest? Or is it just that you feel bad you haven’t done anything exciting in your life? I mean, I’m sure the view is lovely, if you can see past the blinding blizzard and stand the freezing sheets of falling ice long enough to gaze out on the valleys below. But do you really want to suffer the journey up there? Why? To say that you’ve done it? Just say you haven’t done it - it’s much easier, more relaxing, and more honest. Because really, would you ever make it anyway? With all of your fingers and toes?

The bucket list, to me, is a list of regrets that will fester in your head, nestled amongst the lunatic ravings of your final days. Sure, you might get to do some of them. But you’ll probably discover that doing so was a complete hassle (see my earlier treatise on Everest). And maybe they required too much sacrifice along the way. Sure, traveling with that rock band was an experience, but was it worth coming home to a house devoid of your spouse and all of your belongings?

There are plenty of things that I won’t be able to do in this life, but I’d rather have them be a mystery than itemize them in TODO notes that weigh heavily upon the paper and the mind. I’d prefer to be pleasantly surprised when I actually do anything that isn’t completely mundane than to aim for, and vastly undershoot, high goals of adventure and excitement.

But I’ll take this further: I think that instead of listing the things that we want to do, we should list the things that we’re going to be okay with not doing. This is a list we can accomplish.

When I am King, everyone will have a F*ckit List. This is a list of all of the things that could be exciting to do but... nahhhhh. They’re just not going to happen, and that’s alright.

I’ll give some examples to help you get yours going:

Mt. Everest, Kilimanjaro, and even that small hill 10 miles away: I’ve climbed hills before. It seems exciting from the base, but really it’s just an exhausting and forgettable way of changing altitude. Only the process of taking a flight, with the lines, X-Ray frisking, and crammed-stuffy-elevator environment is worse, but at least in an airplane you get to go way, way up. Do you really see yourself spending days, weeks, or even hours raising yourself just marginally higher than you are now?
F*ckit.

Timbuktu: This city, and others like it, sound very exotic and make you think that you should see it. But when you get there, you realize that it’s just another city with people, traffic, buildings, and probably a complete lack of the coffee shops you frequent. In the end, it’s really about the sound of the city name: Tim-Buk-Tu. It’s just a great combination of consonants. So say it a few times to yourself and move on.
F*ckit.

Dating supermodels: These people look really great on the page, apart from the staples in the middle. But do you really want to spend your time with someone that focuses so much on looking that good? Eventually you’ll get around to having a conversation and the passion will just die.
Besides, my wife would kill me.
F*ckit. (not them)

Playing major league sports: Really? You’ve gained 50 pounds of pure bratwurst since that near-winning season your junior year of high school and you think you can go up against these folks that have trained their whole lives to be the shallow, money-making machines they are? Have another beer and turn on the game.
F*ckit.

Read the Great Books: This one’s easy. Pick up just one of the books. No, not the Jane Austen or the Cervantes; these are humorous fiction and go down pretty well when you’re in the mood. No, I’m talking about Plutarch, or Aristotle. Pick it up and read a page. Just a page. Now, you think you want to spend the next several years reading the rest of that book, much less several others a lot like it?
Maybe try watching a PBS series instead. Or something on the History channel. Or just call it a day and watch Die Hard. Again.
F*ckit.

Write a Book: Vastly overrated.
F*ckit.

In the end, our lives are about our experiences. Do you really want yours to include taking notes on things you regret not having done yet and probably continuing to not do in the future? Listing goals and accomplishments seems too much like work to me. Try life instead.
F*ckit.

When I am King: Dying Wish

When I am King...

We’ll all die happy.

It was yesterday's junk mail that started me thinking about death.

I was sorting through the depressing stack of mail that had accumulated since the last time I suffered this chore. Aside: Remember when getting mail used to be exciting? I think that stops the moment you become an adult and every piece of mail is either charging you for something or advertising something ... that you can then be charged for. Where oh where are the penpals of yesteryear?

The envelope was addressed to me, from some generic company I’d never heard of. On the lower-left of the front was the following hook:
Free Pre-Paid Cremation!

At first, I quibbled about the logic; how can it be free if it’s pre-paid? That’s like saying my phone is free every month once I pay for it. Or like pretending I own my house even though I owe the bank more than I’ll make in a lifetime and I'm just lucky they let me keep living in it.

Then I realized the true nature of the message: they want me to die. Not only that: they expect me to die. Soon. And they want me to pay them for death services before it’s too late. After all, they’d better ask me now if they want to have any hope of getting my business. There aren’t many repeat customers in their line of work.

At first, I was offended. I mean, how could they be so callous when they don’t even know me? I expect people I know to want me to shrivel up and expire, but not total strangers. Get to know me first, then wish for my demise.

But then I realized that now is the perfect time for me to think about dying. In fact, it’s something that I should have been thinking about long before now; it’s something we should all be thinking about from the first moment of life.

Think about it: out of all of the things that we are, out of everything we do, from all of the things we attempt to the far smaller set of things we actually accomplish, what is the one thing that we can all count on in our lives (besides bad reality TV shows and conversations about the weather)? Death.

No matter who we are, no matter what skills we have or don’t have, we all stand an equal chance of dying. And that chance is 100%. There is no playing the odds here, there’s just a matter of when.

This state of affairs should bring some hope and satisfaction to all of us. How many things are we afraid of trying in life just because of fear of failure? But this is the one great event in life that we can all achieve to the same level of perfection, regardless of who we are and how fabulous we are. Death doesn’t take any particular level of education, and there’s no IQ test. You don’t need a lot of money, a steady income, or any income. You don’t need a solid relationship or even a single friend in the world. Death is the great equalizer, the uncle that gets along with all the cousins, the paid escort that loves us all equally for as long as we're paying her.

In fact, dying is the one activity that we are working on from the moment we are born. Of course we do other things in life: we eat, we have meaningless relationships, we watch really horrible movies. But all of these are transient activities, occupying but a blip of our overall life timeline. Meanwhile, the entire time we are alive we approach our doom. How satisfying is it to know that we can focus ourselves so completely and single-mindedly around one activity that we then, despite all of our other failures in life, achieve so completely?

When I am King, we’ll all die happy, knowing that we have accomplished the goal that we set out to perform from the start.

In retrospect, I should find that piece of cremation junk mail. I’m dying to find out more about it.





Speaking of death, a friend of mine wrote a book about planning your funeral called The Party of Your Life. This seems like a good a time to mention it. If you find yourself contemplating your expiration date, you might want to check it out.

When I am King: Age-Old Solutions

When I am King...

There will be no more mid-life crises.

The mid-life crisis is one of the most significant moments of our lives. It is the turning point where we go from thinking that anything could happen to knowing that nothing did.

It’s the out-of-fuel part of the journey, that time on the highway where the gas tank Empty light goes on, and you see nothing but prairie and tumbleweeds for miles around. All you can do is to ease off the accelerator, turn off the air conditioning, and turn up the hope as you coast toward your fate.

It’s also a time to take up new hobbies, like heavy drinking and visiting the doctor. It is the time of life for which television shows like Jerry Springer were invented, to help you realize that no matter how bad things are for you, they could be a lot worse.

But all of this is such a waste of energy and drain on our society. There are so many other things that we could not quite achieve in our lives, if only we could continue to make the pointless effort.

When I am King, the mid-life crisis will be a thing of the past. Or, rather, it will be a thing of the future. Medical advances will greatly extend the human lifespan, using everything from robotics to formaldehyde. Mid-life will, necessarily, be extended by years as well, allowing us decades more of productivity before we recognize our inherent uselessness and insignificance.

The best part is that medical advances will extend how long we live, but not the aging process, so we will still be getting senile in our 80s and 90s. This means that if we can manage to hold off our mid-life crisis until the same time, then we’ll have the added advantage of combining these maladies. So while a mid-life crisis may be just as torturous and meaningless as it always was, our senility will ensure that nobody will notice, remember, or care.

When I am King: What's the Worst that Could Happen?

When I am King...

Doctors will predict the worst possible outcome for their patients.

Whenever I go to my doctor, I try to envision the worst-case scenario for my latest injury. For a neck issue, I went with paralysis. For my shoulder, I opted for amputation. And I make a habit of telling my doctor that I’ll see her the next time my body falls apart, unless I’m dead.

My doctor seems to find these predictions alarming and rushes to assure me that the surgeon is not going to amputate, or that my cold is not lethal. But I find it comforting to know the worst that can happen and to verbalize it. Sure, I probably just have a sore throat - but what if it's an early indicator of Bubonic Plague? Or what if that slight headache really is a brain tumor?

The optimist would say that you should look on the bright side. See the positive aspects of any situation and hope for the best. I do consider myself an optimist. To me, the glass is always half full. But I wouldn't drink it because it could be laced with cyanide.

My method of hoping for the best is to realistically consider the worst. Then things can only get better from there. And if things are as bad as I predict, I have the satisfaction of being right, which always feels good.

For example, maybe amputation is an extreme outcome for a sore shoulder. But what if the injury takes a long time to heal? Or what if it requires surgery, which can have risks and complications? These would be unfortunate to one simply hoping for the best. But in my world, they’re not so bad compared to hauling out the bone saw and hacking off the limb.

When I am King, doctors will clearly outline the bleakest possibilities for patients. For example, your doctor might say, “You appear to have a cough, Mr. Jones. This may just be the cold that is going around, but it could also be the beginning stages of any number of terminal diseases. You should put your affairs in order just in case. See you next time, unless you’re dead.”

Sure, these consultations might be a bit of a shock at first. But imagine, after each illness recedes, how wonderful you’ll feel just to be alive. Until the last one, of course. Your doctor will eventually be right about the worst case scenario, which will give them that satisfying "I told you so" feeling. That'll be nice for them.

When I am King: Brochure Thing

When I am King...

Medical pamphlets will be more fun to read.

“It’s terminal.” These are the most horrible two words that your doctor might say to you, handily beating the runner-up, “rectal bleeding.”

My doctor didn’t actually say either of these winning phrases, but he did hand me a brochure last week that talked about how my shoulder problem was typically an issue with older, postmenopausal women. The brochure showed pictures of several such sufferers in beds. Obviously, either their shoulder pain or their advanced age made it impossible for them to get out of bed and change out of their nightgown. But I suppose that they’d retired thirty years ago and had nothing to do all morning but think about how their children never called and what kind of soup they’d like for lunch.

It’s not that I mind having injuries. I figure it’s part of being alive, especially in the high-risk, body-thrashing programming career that I’ve pursued for my entire adult life. And I don’t mind getting older because it’s better than the alternative.

But I do mind being mistaken for being even older and of the opposite sex. For one thing, I’d look awful in those nightgowns the old women were sporting.

The problem is the brochures. Handing you a pamphlet on your disease is the doctor’s way of telling you, “So many people have this problem that we mass-published thousands of these to hand out. So quit your whining, you baby.” It’s also a way for them to get out of actually speaking to you.

And these little booklets do help. Just looking at the pictures convinces me that I’m not doing that badly because I feel a whole lot better than the people in the pictures look. But they don’t make me feel very good about whatever I’ve contracted; the pictures of body parts and the clinical descriptions of maladies go a long way toward making me feel like I’m actually sick, instead of just suffering a temporary setback.

When I am King, medical brochures will be more upbeat. They will teach about the problems and possible cures, but with a whimsical and positive tone that helps patients feel better, even as their bodies are falling apart, piece by piece. Introductory phrases like, “Everybody has spleen disorder!”, “Osteoporosis: today’s hot disease for hipsters of all ages!”, “If you can read this, you must be okay!”, and “Everybody dies!” will help the inspire the readers to read on. Pictures of happy, young people playing Frisbee from their walker, acting as King Lear while wheeling an IV stand, or putting attractive makeup on gangrenous patches will help the patients feel young, healthy, and optimistic, even as the nurse is reaching over to unplug their life support.

Life is a journey to a distant destination. We should do what we can to enjoy the journey itself, because from the way the old women looked in that brochure, the destination sucks.

When I am King: Fast-Forward Progress

When I am King...

We will all have a fast-forward button for life.

Recently, a friend requested the ability to fast-forward through certain life events. It's possible that he was kidding, but since he was talking to the future monarch of our society, it seemed worth considering.

The problem with life is that it doesn't always not completely suck. There are some periods you go through, like grief, healing from injuries, and standing in line at the DMV, that simply take time and anguish. Wouldn't it be great if you could just mentally check out during these times and wake up later when they were all over?

Some lucky people don't have this problem; they clearly checked out years ago and won't be coming back anytime soon. But for the rest of us, why must we suffer these episodes?

Life offers its own fast-forward system already. It's called "getting old." This is the process by which everything seems to happen faster as you get old. A year in school to a kid feels like forever, but a year on the job thirty years later rockets by like a duck through a jet engine. This is a natural reaction to aging. Our body realizes that as we age there is simply more going wrong, so making everything seem faster will make it all better somehow. It's the same reason why punk and speed metal are set to fast tempos.

This current system works, so that the downer periods don't last as long as they might. But we still have to go through them. And since the acceleration applies both to awful events and to the few that aren't as bad, we don't benefit from being able to skip the ones that are worse and focus on the handful that are reasonable. It's a coarse approach, meant to get us to the finish line faster, not to make the journey there any more pleasant.

What we really need is a button that lets us select the periods to skip.

When I am King, we will all have a fast-forward button that allows us to skip past things that we don't like. Just hit the button and watch everything speed past until we want to wake up again. So many things in life will become more bearable: debilitating illnesses, workouts at the gym, tedious conversations, traffic, and most TV shows will breeze by, and we can slow down for the things that we really enjoy: sleeping and watching movies.

One of the difficulties that my scientists are still working on is the remote. When fumbling for the fast-forward button, it is all too common to hit the Stop or Eject button instead, and then the show's over.

When I am King: Age-Old Logic

When I am King...

There will be no more aging.

Obviously I am not proposing stopping people from growing old. We’ll always have older people around, driving slowly in the left lane with the blinker on, saying completely inappropriate things in loud voices, and telling the rest of us that we don’t call home often enough.

But what I can and will change is our age.

Time marches on, minute by minute, day by day, and year by year. Even when it seems like time is standing still, like when you’re in line at the DMV or you’re sitting next to someone on the subway that’s talking on a mobile phone in tedious detail about every one of her children. Even then, time is racing by, pushing us further toward the cliff of our existence into the chasm of our not.

And as the years roll by, they add to our age, one by one. Another birthday cake eaten, another year gone.

Some try to cheat the system by simply telling people the wrong number for their age. But everyone knows. And it's rather sad.

But there’s a better way. Why change the number when we can change the number system?

For millennia, humans have used the decimal system, in base 10. I suppose this came from our having ten fingers available, but that makes it a cruel joke that we’re taught not to count on our fingers in school.

But haven’t we lived with that system long enough? Don’t you think we’ve gotten smarter in the last couple thousand years? Did Plato have reality TV? No, he just had reality. Did Copernicus have the internet? Of course not; he just had the galaxy. Did Benjamin Franklin have glasses? Well, yes, but they probably looked a lot dumber than today’s designer glasses and certainly cost far less. And he certainly didn’t have contact lenses that he could lose, tear, and have to replace every few days.

So isn’t it time that we had a shiny new number system, too? In fact, we should have several to represent the fact that our society is complex, diverse, and horribly bad at math.

When I am King, our age will be kept artificially low by increasing the base that we count in. For example, if you are about to enter your 40th year, then you might tell people, truthfully, that you are 37 (in base 11). Or if you are feeling particularly spritely, you can tell them that you’re having your 28th birthday (in base 16).

Or if you’re feeling young and completely nerdy, you can say that you’re 2A (in base 15).

The system also works in reverse. If you’re only 14 and you feel you really really need that six-pack of beer, then you can tell the clerk at the 7-11 that you’re 22 (in base 6).

No longer will people have to construct elaborate and pathetic lies about their age; they can simply tell the truth while using the power of Math.

Remember: It’s not how old you are, but how old you feel... like telling everyone you are.

Happy Birthday Ditties

Every year, his birthday made him older.
But he still felt young, or so he told her.
"I only feel pain from the neck up,
I don't need a medical check up."
Though he was completely numb below his shoulder.

Every time he got out of the bed
He was one rising closer to dead.
So one morning he tried
To turn the tide
And stayed in bed forever instead.

So many candles on top of the cake,
Nearly more than the pastry could take.
He hated this reminder of aging,
The physical war time was waging,
Though a birthday's better than a wake.

When I am King: Exexercise

When I am King...

We will exercise less and eat more.

Common wisdom and dull scientific theory say that exercise helps prolong our lives. So the time that we spend in the gym allows us to live longer and enjoy more time on this planet.

But it this actually true? That is, will we actually enjoy that time?

The problem is that we have to spend the time in the gym in the first place. I don’t know about you, but I don’t actually enjoy my time in the gym. I like having worked out, not working out. So that hour and a half spent pushing pieces of metal around and grunting and sweating is worse than a waste of my time; it’s time that I’m actively not enjoying my time.

While it’s nice that that gym time might actually back-end load more time onto the end of my life, I wonder about the tradeoff.

First, let’s look at the numbers.

I figure I spend, on a “good” week, about six hours exercising. This doesn’t include time that I might get exercise while doing something worthwhile, like walking to a donut shop or climbing stairs because there’s no escalator or elevator handy. This six hours is dead time that I’m spending purely in the pursuit of this activity that I hate, just to stay healthy.

Six hours a week adds up to about 300 hours per year. Assuming about 15 hours per day of physically active time, my workout time amounts to about 20 days per year. Let’s assume I keel over at an overripe age of about 80. I started working out when I was about 20 (after a childhood spent developing a damn good impersonation of a sloth), so that’s 60 working-out years. That means that by the time I’m 80, I’ll have spent nearly 5 years of my life exercising (60 years * 20 days/year = 1800 days ~= 5 years). So unless exercising adds more than 5 years to my lifespan, I’ve lost in the bargain – I’ve gained some time, but I’ve lost more than that amount to a pursuit that I thoroughly detest.

Next, let’s look at the time that we'll gain by being healthy. Exercise isn’t adding any lifespan now; it’s adding it to the end of our lives. You know, that time when we’re less mobile, less happy, less mentally aware, and less employable. Our kids have written us off, our friends have died, and our interest in anything except our latest hip operation have waned. And now we get another few years to live? Oh, boy. I can’t wait.

When I am King, we will exercise less. I’m not saying that you can’t exercise if you want to. I mean, if you actually enjoy going to the gym and grunting and sweating and seeing your fellow gym members primp and preen in front of the mirrors and you like grabbing the cardio machine handles that are dripping with someone else’s bodily fluids, then by all means you should keep doing it. Because you’re enjoying it. You nut. But all of the sane people in the world will wake up and realize that we should enjoy our time more by exercising less and by doing other things instead that are actually fun.

I propose that we all take the time that we would have spent in the gym and spend it doing something we enjoy: eating donuts. We all like donuts, so it’s an irrefutable fact that more time spent eating them will lead to a life well-lived. And since donuts probably help stop up our arteries and cause heart problems, they will actually take away years at the end of our lives. This might seem sad at first. But if you think about it, this means that we will have spent more time eating donuts during a shorter life, so the proportion of our time spent enjoying life will be that much greater, and we will all die happy. Besides, they're just taking away time at the end, which doesn't sound like much fun anyway.

So get off that elliptical dreadmill and have a donut. Or three. You’ll thank me when you’re dead.

Death Rattle & Hum

The calendar’s days were numbered.
The mantle clock’s time was up.
The condiments all were dried out and gone
Except one, which soon would ketchup.

The short man was not very long for this world;
His house was one big deathtrap.
The welcome mat lay at death’s doorway
And his dog drank just one final lap.

The man thought he’d live forever,
That his time on this Earth would be long.
But he failed and he passed away one day;
It turns out he was just plain dead wrong.

When I am King: On Birthdays

When I am King...

Everyone will get old.

Some people say that getting old sucks, but I disagree. Our bodies and minds are engineered to make sure that our lives improve as we get older. Sure, there are mishaps along the way. And debilitating illness and terminal disease may creep in to spoil the fun. But in general, life gets better as we slowly erode. Here are a few examples:

Memory:
Our memories fail as we age. This has several advantages. For one thing, we can’t remember how much worse we feel now than we did when we were younger. Also, we eventually forget our birthdays and even how old we are.

Alcohol:
We can’t drink as much as we used to, so it takes far less for us to have a good time. For that matter, it takes far less to bring on a hangover which must, by definition, mean that we had a fantastic time the night before.

Vision:
Our eyesight degrades, which has several implications. For one thing, our personal space expands since we can’t see people anymore when they’re too close. This prevents unnecessary contact and the spread of disease. Also, our eyes provide an automatic soft-focus filter to things that we see, making our loved ones look more romantic and our reflections look less wrinkly.

When I am King, aging will be celebrated with cakes and candles and insincere wishes for good health. Or do we already do that? I forget.

Happy 2009: Better Luck Next Year

As one year is ushered out to the firing squad and is pulled kicking and screaming into place, it is time to reflect on some of the momentous events around the world in 2008. It is said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it it it. It. Also, what better way to start the new year than by wallowing in times that are past and cannot now be changed? Finally, hindsight is usually more fun than foresight, depending of course on whose hind you're sighting.

While these ten items are not everything that happened this past year, as that full list would exceed the word limit for my blog post, they are surely the most important ones, or at least the ones that I could recall.

1. The Treaty of Westphalia completely disintegrated this year, leaving only the Duchy of Lichtenstein and the Kingdom of Iceland to hold the peace in all of Western Europe. But hold that peace they did, and through a common currency system (except for the British, who know better) and a shared cologne and antipathy for each other, the entire EU celebrated its first year of complete harmony this year, marred only by a slight war in Greece and a disagreement over the official language in Disneyland Paris. The world looks forward to another few centuries of European empire-building before everything crumbles apart and Africa falls into a bitter and constant squabble.
2. There was apparently an election in the U.S. this year, but it happened so quickly and quietly that nobody can recall the experience nor the outcome. It is of no matter; previous administrations have proven that it doesn't matter whom is elected, as the President has so little effect on America's effective domestic and international policies. It only matters that the country elects someone, to keep the ballot machines in working order.
3. Billy Keeble, the kid down the street with two left hands and a penchant for writing "fart" on his lawn with weed killer, won the Nobel Peace Prize this year for choosing not to beat up his sister when she stomped on his favorite Hot Wheel car (the gold one with the flames on the sides and the wide back tires). Way to go, Billy!
4. Wall Street crashed and the global financial system came to a halt, eliminating jobs, homes, and life savings world-wide. This gave all of us more opportunity to focus on the important things in life, like spending quality time with our families and wondering where our next meal was coming from.
5. The sun continued to rise in the east every single day this past year, confirming suspicions of many prominent scientists that its trajectory is not merely random. Work has begun on funding a project to find the track that the sun rides upon.
6. Orville Squenchgroot of Cablespleen, Missouri, discovered a new species of slug inhabiting the bog in his back yard. Environmentalists hailed the discovery as proof that eliminating species such as owls, eagles, and wolves may be okay after all, since there are just so darned many other ones around. And such cute ones, too: this new slug species, named "Ickus Slimatode", sports a tell-tale ring of warts just below what would be the neck if the blob had a head.
7. The U.S. produced more manure in 2008 than ever before, setting a new record for the Gross National Product.
8. On the technology front, 2008 saw the invention of not only the laser-based digital meat-cleaver, but also fast-healing sutures to deal with the ensuing carnage in home kitchens everywhere.
9. In March, Len Skrappentz, of Scranton, PA, discovered the solutions to both world peace and world hunger. Unfortunately, he misplaced his notes while searching his files for his taxes last year and has been unable to locate them since. He recalled that both solutions had something to do with eating more Cap'n Crunch, but the details continue to elude him.
10. Except for minor skirmishes in Auckland and southern North Dakota, the world enjoyed relative calm and peace throughout the year, and there is reason to hope that this happy coexistence between all peoples will continue unabated in the coming year. Anyone disagreeing with this will get the crap kicked out of them.

The year that's done,
Two Thousand Eight,
We must admit
Was really great.

The year to come,
Two Thousand Nine,
The experts feel
Will be quite fine.

Each year that ends
Reminds us all
That Winter, Summer,
Spring and Fall

Pass quicker always -
How time flies! -
Bringing us soon
To our own demise.

Happy new year!

When I am King: Getting Older Still

When I am King...

We will all be unable to move.

Have you ever noticed how people, as they get older, move less and less? And how old people tend to move very little, spending their days in thought, in chairs, or in an intensive care unit at the hospital?

Many people think that this lack of movement is due to health issues, or simply slower physical capability. But no - their stationary positions are deliberate, coming from one of the biggest life lessons that we are all put on the planet to learn: we lose stuff.

How many times have you put down your glasses somewhere, only to wander away and forget where you put them? How many times have you similarly lost your car keys, or your coffee cup, or your infant child?

And yet we keep on bombing around our lives, picking up stuff and then putting it down, over and over. In fact, experts say that our inability to keep our stuff is the main driving force in our weak economy, because we simply have to keep replacing things.

Meanwhile, the old people sit in their rocking chairs, smiling, humming show tunes from the 40's, and watching us all through the glasses they put on in 1984 and haven't taken off since.

The key to not losing things is simply not to move; it is our unceasing movement that causes the loss. But why?

Researchers at the Intitut de Grendl Frooshtűűk in Freso, California have discovered that all things in the universe have a life force and an accompanying drive to propagate. This is evident in living creatures, where propagation involves mating, alcohol, and online dating services, but it is perhaps not as obvious with inanimate objects. These objects cannot reproduce, obviously (with the sole exception of single socks), so their non-biological imperative is simply to spread themselves around and see a bit of the world. Lacking the mobility to do this themselves, they manipulate us to do it for them, forcing us to repeatedly go out for a cup of coffee and then visit the bathroom, or to simply wander around the house in a daze wondering what we got up for. (Apparently, this mental telepathy from the objects is the source of the occasional high-pitched whine that we sometimes hear; the objects broadcast outside of our hearing range, but the broadcasting frequency varies as they go through puberty.)

And then after we've been alive and manipulated for some years, moving around aimlessly and losing stuff just becomes habit.

Old people have learned about loss and have also learned preventative measures. For one thing, their hearing starts to go, which enables them to be less prone to suggestion from random objects. But more importantly, they have learned to ignore the impulse to move, preferring to sit complacently, stuff intact, while they watch the rest of us bumble through life.

When I am King, all people will be required to stay still at all times, to prevent further loss of our stuff. Although voluntary, the program may be easier for some people to comply with the glue, staples, and railroad spikes provided.

As we all stop wasting our time wandering around, the ensuing gain in productivity will more than offset the economic loss from stuff-replacement. And ours will be a stress-free society because we can stop worrying about where we put our glasses or our car keys, or what made us get up in the first place.

The MRI

I spent some quality time in an MRI machine a few days ago. Mostly because I thought it would be fun, but also because my Doctor wanted to see me stuffed inside a small tube.

Every time I talked to someone about the appointment (my doctor, the appointment nurse, the technician, the technician's assistant, the janitor in the hospital) they all asked the same thing: do you suffer from Claustrophobia? Of course I said no: Santa wouldn't hurt me.

Finally, I was stretched out on the table, heading into the machine and I understood; it's the smallest, tightest little room on the planet, and you feel like you're going into King Tut's eternal apartment. And the folks running the machine don't help that feeling. They could have a big door into the machine so that at least you might feel like you could open that door back up. But no: they slide you into the tube head-first, leaving only the feet sticking out. Now I don't know about you, but if something went wrong and I had to get myself out of a situation, my feet are the last things I'd trust to help me out. Beyond stubbing a toe, there's not much that they can do for me.

So there I am, shoved into this Chet-sized tampon applicator, trying to calm my nerves and convince myself that the tech isn't about to tickle my feet with a hypodermic full of cyanide, when the sounds start.

At first, it's just some clicking. Like a big metal dolphin. Or like they're trying to start the machine and the engine's not turning over. Then things start for real: all of a sudden, there's a huge, constant buzzing noise ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ that the foam earplugs they gave me are doing nothing to stop. Meanwhile, I keep remembering the tech's advice: "stay still - don't move your neck." Easy for her to say: she's not stuffed into a coffin with the War of the Worlds playing around her.

After a couple of minutes of this, the tech's voice kicks in and tells me there's another test coming for 3 minutes. Then the clicking sounds. Then more loud buzzing, but different, like BZZ-BZZ-BZZ-BZZ-BZZ.... After that, another test for four minutes, again with the clicking, and again with yet another buzzing sound, loud enough to rip my head off if I hadn't been told to keep it still.

There were 3 more tests for a total of about 13 minutes, each one with its own unique buzzing sound and pattern. I felt like I was inside an 80's arcade game, when buzzing was about all that the games could do. The last one sounded like a video game sound track composed by Phillip Glass, if he'd only had two notes to work with and a sadistic agenda.

Finally, the tests were over and they let me out. They pulled me out of the machine slowly, just because they thought it'd be more fun for me to be in there for as long as possible.

I understand now what "MRI" means. Some people mistakenly think that it stands for "Magnetic Resonance Imaging," but I know better. It's actually an abbreviation for what you're thinking by the time you leave that womb of torture: "Am Are I?"