by Ted Sherman

Created on: May 13, 2007   Last Updated: May 16, 2007

It doesn't really matter if you understand the causes of aging. It happens to everyone, and it is the only disease for which there is no cure. By living a healthy and meaningful life, one can hope to reach an old age of, as the Bible describes it, "three score years and ten". And maybe a decade or so more.

However, all the fads, diets, cosmetic surgery, wigs and other fake parts can do is allow you to think you're delaying the inevitable process. It will also make any attempt you try will make you look absolutely foolish to everyone else.

Of course, there are determining factors that can reduce or extend those years. For instance, dying at an early age may involve heavy smoking, illegal drugs, no exercise, overeating, drinking and driving, involvement in one of the world's endless wars and other well-known self-indulgent causes.

Living to a vigorous old age usually involves no smoking, no illegal drugs, driving sober and safely, regular exercise, healthy diet and staying away from war zones. Of course, maybe the most important factor in aging gracefully and surviving is just plain dumb luck.

However, whatever you do, good or bad, you won't get out of this mess of a world alive. You don't need to understand the causes of your gradually getting old. All you can do is to make your life and health as enjoyable and useful as you can.

Shakespeare was absolutely accurate 500 years ago when he listed the seven typical ages of man in his famous "all the world's a stage" passage. Here are brief excerpts:

And one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
1. At first, the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
2. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel, and shining morning face, creeping like snail
unwillingly to school.
3. And then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad, made to his mistress' eyebrow.
4. Then a soldier, full of strange oaths and bearded, jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
5. And then the justice, in fair round belly with good capon lined, with eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saw and modern instances; and so he plays his part.
6. The sixth age shifts into the lean and slippered pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
a world too wide for his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, turning again toward childish treble.
7. Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

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