Living longer

[inavalan]

"[... 6 paragraphs ...]
In that picture consciousness has little part to play. In man's very early history, however, and in your terms for centuries after the "awakening," as described in our book, people lived in good health for much longer periods of time—and in certain cases they lived for several centuries. No one had yet told them that this was impossible, for one thing. Their sense of wonder in the world, their sense of curiosity, creativity, and the vast areas of fresh mental and physical exploration, kept them alive and strong[. For another thing, however, elders were highly necessary and respected for the information they had acquired about the world. They were needed. They taught the other generations.
[... 2 paragraphs ...]
In your society age has almost been considered a dishonorable state. Beliefs about the dishonor of age often cause people to make the decision—sometimes quite consciously—to bring their own lives to an end before the so-called threshold is reached. Whenever, however, the species needs the accumulated experience of its own older members, that situation is almost instantly reversed and people live longer.
[... 1 paragraph ...]
(9:34.) The so-called youth culture, for all of its seeming (underlined) exaggerations of youth's beauty and accomplishments, actually ended up putting down youth, for few could live up to that picture. Often, then, both the young and the old felt left out of your culture. Both share also the possibility of accelerated creative vitality—activity that the elder great artists, or the elder great statesmen, have always picked up and used to magnify their own abilities. There comes a time when the experiences of the person in the world click together and form a new clearer focus, provide a new psychological framework from which his or her greatest capacities can emerge to form a new synthesis. But in your society many people never reach that point—or those who do are not recognized for their achievements in the proper way, or for the proper reasons....
[... 2 paragraphs ...]
(9:53.) Again, in our material on suffering (see the 895th session, for instance), I mentioned that illness serves purposes—that it has a face-saving quality in your society—so here I am speaking of the body's own abilities. In that light, the senses do not fade. Age alone never brought about any loss of physical agility, or of mental ability, or of desire. Death must come to every living person, yet the time and the means are basically up to each individual. Meaningful work is important at any age. You cannot content the aged entirely with hobbies any more than you can the young, but meaningful work means work that also has the exuberance of play, and it is that playful quality that contains within itself great propensities of a healing and creative nature."

—DEaVF1 Chapter 5: Session 902, February 20, 1980