Living Beyond Official Age

Man, born of woman, has a short life yet has his fill of sorrow.” Says the Bible Book of job. Could this mean that we are naturally created to live short and die? If not, how long can we live to satisfy our dream lifespan? When asked how long they would want to live, some said seventy years and above, while many wished to live hundred and above. For Christians “seventy years is all we have – eighty years if we are strong; …life is soon over, and we are gone.” Wrote the Psalmist. To actualize what you wish yourself, you must control aging; otherwise, wear and tear takes its effect on you. Though drug companies have invested so much on effective treatment of aging; finding a way to slow down aging remains a personal concern. Unfortunately, numerous researchers in the field of genetics, zoology, gerontology, and molecular biology study aging without any practical solution to it. All these attempts we think will for man “let his flesh become fresher than in youth; let him return to the days of his youthful vigor.” How? To some, it can be controlled through constant or strenuous exercises. Others say regular intake of life-enhancing drugs, or even plastic surgery. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the instructions that specify the age beyond which a species cannot live are locked within the code of the genetic material. In other words, despite having your entire skeleton remodeled every 10 years, your body producing about 25 million cells as replacement every second, you cannot live as long as a giant tortoise lives. In approximated life spans, human is rated 5th in life span of 80 years, below parrot 100 years, tortoise 150 years; sequoia 3,000 years, and bristlecone pine 4,700 years. Below human are; elephant 70 years, alligator 50 years, monkey 30 years. While dog, mouse, and bee has 15,3 years, and 90 day respectively. Why a house cat lives 20 years, but a similar-size opossum lives only 3 years; a bat lives 20 or 30 years, but a mouse only 3 years, and a giant tortoise live 150 years but an elephant only 70 years. Magazine report that “Factors such as diet, body weight, brain size, or rate of living do not explain such diversity of life spans.” Maybe, genes exist which can tell cells, and indeed the entire organisms to grow old at its appropriate time and die. If not so, why have humans not live up to 150 years? The Guinness World Record has it that the longest unambiguously documented life span is that Jeanne Calment of France (1875-1997), who died at the age of 122 years and 164 days. This is after human life span began depleting from the time of Adam, who lived to the age of 930 years to the contemporary time. Apparently, the oldest documented living person is Kama Chinnen of Japan (114 years), who was born on 10 May, 1895. this is after the death of Gertrude Baines of America, on 11 September, 2009. The oldest living man, after the death of Henry Allingham, 18 July, 2009 is Walter Bruining of America (112), born 21 September, 1896. what happens to the Africans, who are naturally stronger than Whites? The attitudes of Africans to keeping records may not be unconnected to our non record holding or breaking history. This is because, in Nigeria alone, there are handful of old people, who live above 115 years, but history does not hold anything about them. Pa Oha Ohaka from Obele in Rivers State, for instance, lived beyond every reasonable doubt, above 120 years before his death in 2008. Though we apportion blames to our forefathers, what is our stake in today’s history when upon keeping records, we either keep wrongly, or falsely. Many workers, for instance, have time without number alter their real age, to remain in active service. Many, when they talk of age, refer to “official age” which is different from their real age. To live beyond official age, we have to keep record of our real age. The indiscriminate alteration of our age, will not in any way make us live longer than we should. Rather, it will make us live shorter than normal, because, we do not appreciate God for making us live longer than we write on paper. Athletes can go ahead in reducing their age, but they should also remember that there is no asylum in aging. When it comes, you cannot deceive your ability. The reason for age falsification may not be far from the fact that we have realised only a fraction of our potential. So, let us learn to consider some trivial phenomena that do not matter. This will give us an edge, and make us important people in the sands of time, and annals of history. Okere, Chimezie, Dept., of Mass Communication, RSUST, Port Harcourt.

Okere, Chimezie