We are all programmed to die one day. How many tomorrows we are going to see; we have no idea. However, we all live as if we are destined to live for ever. This is the biggest irony of life. We never notice how much time has already gone and the time which is left we can only guess wildly. As long as we exist,
death is not with us, when it comes, we don't exist, said famously by Ernest Becker, the author of “Denial of Death”. Life is short if we waste time by living a repetitive and habitual life. Life is long if we keep on learning and growing by experiencing new things in life.
Most of us run after wrong things thereby waste lot of precious time, allocated to each one of us. People can survive for decades with terminal diseases. Some others die instantly. They don't get time to prepare themselves for dying. Some even don't get up in the morning. Oh sadly, few people beg and pray for early death. They desperately want to die. What a life? Full of uncertainty.
We humans are highly vulnerable, delicate and prone to accidents, diseases and calamities. Off course, some element of uncertainty and surprises will always be there throughout our lifetime. Like, a person is travelling by road and met with a fatal accident due to someone else mistake. However, substantial part of our life including aging can be controlled by us. Living is a skill to be learnt. We can potentially design our own destiny.
Do you know that at least 15 to 20 years of additional life is purely at our disposal? If we grow and age positively, we can avail these bonus years. In the world, a little over 53,000 people die every day. Nearly 63% of deaths, as per WHO's estimates are because of life style diseases. These people could have lived
longer, had they escaped from life style diseases like diabetes, obesity, cancer, heart and lung diseases. They themselves created those diseases. Seneca, a major philosophical figure of Roman Empire very rightly said that 'learning how to live takes a whole life and what is more surprising is that, it takes a whole
life to learn how to die”. He is right, we don't accept the process of dying and death despite knowing its inevitability. In a way, we don't want to die but at the same time, we don't want to live gracefully.
Pause for a minute and think about our own aging process. We may be 'aging' physiologically only for 7 or 8 years in a d e c a d e . I n o n e d e c a d e , w e a g e chronologically by 10 years. But we may age
only 7-8 years we lead a robust and healthy life – both physically and mentally. On the other hand, we may age physiologically by even 14 to 15 years or even more in a span of one decade. This happens when we don't grow in a healthy way. Different biomarkers for various diseases deteriorate fast when we age. In this way, majority of us either hasten or slow down our aging process.
As most of the time we are busy in our day to day problems, we don't spend time to look inside ad
see things in bigger perspective. However, a time comes when start attending, more frequently,
prayer meetings, after death, of our known and close ones. Then the question of old age and astapproaching death comes more often in our mind. Thanks to improved living conditions and
medical interventions, we can treat better some of the leading causes of death such as cancer and heart stroke. If we take care 'loneliness' and maintain an active life - mentally and physically with
decent diet then our journey of remaining life can well be under our control. Death and the process of dying is one of the most fascinating subjects in our life. Many institutions across the world are studying this subject to delay and possibly even defeat death. Medical experts have successfully identified 'longevity genes' as well as physiological and biological factors that control our aging process. Undoubtedly, the world his becoming a far better place to live. As a result, life expectancy has been increasing consistently. In every year, one year is added in our average life span. A great news indeed. With this speed, our younger generation will easily be crossing 100. It's not a fiction that with the help of gene editing, nontechnology, artificial intelligence etc, organ replacement including head will be very common in near future.
Death will be “optional” within just 25 years, and the aging process will be “reversible,” according to
two genetic engineers, José Luis Cordeiro and David Wood. Their book, The Death of Death, asserts that “immortality is a real and scientific possibility that could come much earlier than originally thought. Humans will die only in accidents, never of natural causes or illness, by around the year 2045.” They further maintain that “Old age starts to be classified as an 'illness' so that publicly funded research into its 'cure' can extend.” Cordeiro, who is based at MIT in the USA, says he has “chosen not to die” and that in 30 years' time, he will be “younger” than he is today. There is no denying the possibility that that time
may come sooner, rather than later.
We all want to die gracefully and peacefully. What is really dreadful about death is the suffering
and pain that is associated with the process of dying. Therefore, we are fearful of death because of
uncertainty, physical and emotional pain, and the loss of everything and everyone we have loved
in life. The anxiety that's caused by thoughts of ceasing to be is called death anxiety. Death is the
most fundamental companion to anxiety.
Time is all in the mind. Its speed varied from time to time.
Many of us also start to feel “settled” once we enter our late forties or early fifties. Our children
may leave the nest for college or job, get married, start a family…and life becomes comparatively
comfortable and settled as the struggle period is, for the most part, over. At this point, many find
themselves “mellowing out” - and feeling more satisfied with life. This tends to be especially true
when one reaches retirement from active service or a profession, and life becomes more routine and habitual. The same routine in the morning -- going for a walk, practicing yoga, reading newspapers, checking email, having breakfast followed by the afternoon leg of similarly regular activities. This goes on and on.
Even irrespective of age, we often experience time subjectively. When we are bored or in painful situations, time moves slowly. On the other hand, for one who is watching an entertaining film or engaged in interesting conversation, the time flies. In the words of Albert Einstein, “Put your hand on a hot stove
for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.”
Time seems to move faster as we get older.
The time displays on our clocks and the time we all experience is different. Each one of us experiences time in our own unique way. Though time is objective, our experience of it is subjective. Most of us have surely noticed that time seems to speed up as we age. Now numerous studies have confirmed this experience. Time appears to be moving much faster than it did in our childhood and young adulthood when, for instance, a single summer felt like a year. Depending on one's outlook and experience, the days, months, and years appear to offer either less or more time than usual.
Researchers have not, thus far, been able to pinpoint the exact reason or reasons why the perception of time changes so radically as we age. While there are many theories, i t r e m a i n s a m y s t e r i o u s
phenomenon. In 2005, two German r e s e a r c h e r s a t L u d w i g M a x i m i l i a n University of Munich conducted a very important study on time perception.
A r o u n d 5 0 0 participants, ages 14 to 94 years, took part in the study. They were asked to fill out
questionnaires relating to their perception of the passage of time. Possible answers ranged from “very slowly” to “very fast.” Results support the popular consensus that the passage of time seems to accelerate with age.
Recently, another study also concluded that “Physics is the reason time seems to fly when you're grown.” According to Adrian Bejan, the J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Duke University, ''the present is different from the past because the mental viewing has changed, not because
somebody's clock rings. Days seemed to last longer in your youth because the young mind receives more images during one day than the same mind in old age." He further explains that 'the fact that adults have fewer new experiences than children contributes to the appearance that time is moving faster. Therefore, as we get older time becomes slower because no new experiences and so no processing of images.
