Howard Brazee wrote: > As it is we don't get the same joy of discovery as a 4 year old has. The > older we get, the more jaded we would tend to become. I don't know about you but _I_ certainly experience that joy of discovery, every time I learn something interesting and new or solve a difficult problem. The four-year-old just has no context for his discoveries; is mine not as "good," somehow, because I _do_ have that context? > Imagination takes some work. Look around you and see lots of people who > have slowed down their imaginations - possibly all of us. Right. That's an argument against being (mentally) sedentary, not against long life. And no, it's not all of us. Research has shown that the plasticity of the human brain lasts pretty much throughout life; the only thing that hinders this is absence of stimulation. > I like what a world class mountain climber once told me. He thinks he > keeps trying to recreate the delicious thrill he had as a child climbing a > fence. Trouble is, it gets harder and harder as he gets better and better. Well, yes, but that only means he has to keep finding bigger challenges, right? Or perhaps find some other pursuit that is equally challenging. This universe is plenty big enough to keep a human being occupied for a long, long, _long_ time. (Although part of that time might be necessarily boring, particularly when going from one place to another. :-) > Which means that to have a satisfactory real - real - real long life, we > need to do really work at this. Sethra has her methods, we know a couple > of them. Hell, to have a satisfactory three-score-and-ten we have to work at it. Look at all the people who have given up their lives in their 60's or 70's just because they've convinced themselves that they're "old." That's just attitude, not an inherent trait, disease aside. -- Frank Mayhar frank at exit.com http://www.exit.com/ Exit Consulting http://www.gpsclock.com/ http://www.exit.com/blog/frank/