Another great one from IT Conversations Andrew Weill gets interviewed by Dr. Moira Gunn about his latest book about aging well.
The science around it is called Gerontology. The book is focusing on compressing morbidity: Reduction of the amount of time at the end of life spend in sickness and decline. My father has mastered that goal: He was almost never sick, things took longer lately and he was tired earlier, but still full of life, may be juggling too many things. He stopped for three minutes to chat with his running buddies, took a last breath and died. Compressing his own morbidity to about one second.
When I told Doug Engelbart about my father’s death he said: It will not help you right now, but let me tell you from the perspective of a really old man: This is the way you want to go. It actually did help me a lot.
One more interesting thing I learned from listening to Andrew Weill. It’s good to have a couple of pounds of fat on your ribs. He had cases of bad influenza where people lost 10 to 15 pounds within 48 hours. If you don’t have these reserves, you are going to die.
What also comes across when you hear him talk is that he does not take himself too serious, that humor is a big part of a good long life. Oh and dark chocolate is good for you :-) Which is already spawning a whole new specialty chocolate industry.