Diaz Cameron - The Longevity Book: The Science of Aging, the Biology of Strength, and the Privilege of Time

CONTENTS

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS TO PAY ATTENTION; LESSONS ALWAYS ARRIVE WHEN YOU ARE READY, AND IF YOU CAN READ THE SIGNS, YOU WILL LEARN EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW IN ORDER TO TAKE THE NEXT STEP.

PAOLO COELHO, THE ZAHIR

Jeff Dunas

THERES AN IDEAL BEAUTY THAT IS HARDER TO DEFINE OR UNDERSTAND, BECAUSE IT OCCURS NOT JUST IN THE BODY BUT WHERE THE BODY AND THE SPIRIT MEET AND DEFINE EACH OTHER.

URSULA K. LE GUIN, THE WAVE IN THE MIND

T HE BLACK AND WHITE photo you see on the previous page was inspired by a picture taken at the very first professional photo shoot I was ever a part of. I was brand-new to the industryonly sixteen years oldwhen the amazing photographer Jeff Dunas invited me to sit for him. That first day, he draped me in a white sheet and told me to look at the camera. It was the beginning of a new life for me. Jeff had the idea that we should repeat this image, as many times as we both were able to, for the rest of our lives. I thought it was a brilliant idea and certainly a unique opportunity. So six years later, we recreated the photo, and this time I held the original photo in my hands. And then another six years later, when I was twenty-eight years old, we did it again.

While I was working on this book, considering the meaning of my lifes journey, it reminded me that Jeff and I had made this pact and that it had been way too long since we had taken a photo. So I called him up and soon I was once again in front of his lens. The photo you see in this book is the result.

With every passing year, my physical body has shifted, of coursethats easy enough to see in the picture. But less obvious are the shifts that cant be weighed or measured; the emotional, mental, and spiritual shifts that accompany the passage of time and the accumulation of experiences. If you squint really hard, if you look really closely, you might be able to see some evidence of those changes. When I look at this picture, I can see them and feel them immediately.

Contemplating aging has a way of making us consider our youth. In order to look forward, we first look backward. We flip through old photographs and read through old letters and journals. We reminisce with friends and family about the experiences that have led us to where we are today. Sometimes we feel nostalgic. Other times we feel relieved that no matter what, time keeps marching on.

When I look at this collection of photographs, I feel the pull of time, forward and backward, each image bringing me closer to the woman I am today, each pointing toward the woman I will become. I dont yet know who she is, but I look forward to meeting her. We all want to know what, when, and how our stories will unfold, and all we have to go on is the life we have experienced so far, the choices we have already made, and the stories we have lived through, from beginning to middle to end.

I wrote this book because I wanted to peek into my future. I wanted to get a sense of what might happen, what could happen, and what I could possibly do for myself now to continue the journey, and to enjoy the journey for as long as possible. In the years that come, I may grow weaker, but it is my hope that I can also grow wiser, warmer, and more resilient. I hope we can all find the power to grow older together, each of us doing the work we must to become stronger and more loving and more at home in our hearts, in our bodies, and in the world.

Photographs make it possible for us to watch ourselves age. We can see ourselves grow taller, observe the cheekbones that show up as we pass from adolescence to young womanhood, notice the wrinkles that begin appear just a couple of decades after that. What is less easily grasped by a camera lens is the inner growth, the way the heady passions of youth grow into the steadier fascinations of adulthood, or the privileges that time offers with every passing year.

Time can be kept by clocks and calendars, measured in inches and wrinkles, and caught in images and photographs. But if we are very lucky, it can also be counted in a life well spent, full of learning, love, and laughter.

A ROUND MY FORTIETH BIRTHDAY, I started thinking about what it means to age. It is a fundamentally human question, one we all start to consider at some point. None of us is immune to the passage of time, and one day, when you realize that life just keeps moving forward and there really is no going backthe wondering begins. Poets write poems about it and musicians write songs about it and scientists design experiments to understand it. All of us humans wonder what will happen to us when we get older.

I had been living in this body of mine for more than four decades when I started thinking about the changes that might be coming down the road. I have experienced a lot of changes throughout my lifetime, of course, but I found myself unable to stop thinking about how the decades ahead were going to reveal some even more drastic changesand how I didnt really understand the aging process, or what it would mean for me. I had seen people I love get old and decline sharply and painfully, and I wondered if that would be my fate, or if I could hope for something better.

Around the same time, I was also writing a book called The Body Book, which focused on the foundational aspects of human life. It was full of the kind of stuff I had been learning about over the course of nearly two decadesinformation about nutrition, exercise, and cultivating strong habitsalong with some of the latest scientific insights about overall physical health. I already had intimate knowledge of the ways in which fitness and diet could change my body for the better. Now I wondered: how could I stay healthy and strong in the years to come? We all want longevity, of course. We all want more calendar pages to turn, more time to experience life. But what is a long life without strength, without physical and emotional health and resilience?

So I called my writing partner, Sandra Bark, with whom I had written The Body Book, and I told her that I had figured out that our next book would be about cellular aging.

She laughed and said, Great, an easy one.

To be clear, there is nothing easy about this subject of agingnot the science of it, and not the experience of living through it. But easy or not, it will happen, and it is happening right now. We can avoid most uncomfortable truths for a very long time, if we want to, but theres no denying that this one catches up with us eventually. Its my hope that with a better understanding of what aging really isthe science of it, the biology of it, the cultural and historical context of itwe can all become empowered to live well in the years ahead.

One thing that Ive learned about uncomfortable truths is that you make life a whole lot harder for yourself when you pretend they arent real. You can waste a lot of precious time and energy trying to make something into what it is not. Once you stop fighting reality, everything becomes a lot easier. Youth is a beautiful part of life, and the discoveries we make when we are young are invaluable. They are the lessons and the memories that we will carry with us as we move into each new phase of our lives. Its important to keep those lessons close to us, but its also important to let go of what no longer is, and to accept and prepare for what is to come.