I'm in agreement regarding anti-aging products. I explore this in A New Wrinkle my musical play on aging when Barbie the Doll sings her song Passing for Young (which talks about anxiety about looking young, Botox, Restylane, liposuction etc) and when the Chorus responds to her song asking her:

When you took your old face off
and the wrinkles escaped
What happened to what was
written all over your face?
When you put the new face forward
When you put the smooth face on
Where did it go, the map you made
dancing along with life?
Let’s face it; you could have lost face there.

Of course with Baba Yaga the hag from Russian folklore as the play's protagonist, there's no equivocation about where A New Wrinkle is coming from.

Yes, I do miss my beautiful younger skin and wish I did not bruise so easily as I do these days, but I am happy to have lived to a healthy, curious 69.

Hello Crabby,

I am 81 years old and people always say "You have beautiful skin,what is your secret?"

My answer? "THANKS,MOM".....

I saw my reflection in a log
and warped and rough as it might be
I knew quite well
that it was me

I have never tried any of the anti-aging tools except for some creams. I actually am not against looking better...not younger...so getting rid of deep wrinkles or unattractive age spots or even doing surgery so that I don't look so tired and sad are not anything I am against. I am just not pro enough to get off my butt and do anything about it.

I meant to share this link. If you're interested, it says forget skin - your *bones* sag!! I can't get the link to link; I'm sorry.

http://futurity.org/health-medicine/sagging-skin-and-bones-as-we-age

My skin solution has been to move to Hawaii. The soft, humid air is a natural moisturizer. My skin ages 20 years in appearance when I visit the Mainland (and every day is a bad hair day there, too). Of course I have brown spots and so on and some sun "damage," but it's pretty clear that avoiding sun all the time is not healthy. I take care but not to excess with sun exposure.
I agree with the commenter above that a lot of the beautiful skin you see on older people is hereditary. Some Italians and Filipinos have lovely skin even into old age.
Oh, and this longevity stuff. Aldous Huxley wrote amusingly about this obsession in *After Many a Summer Dies the Swan.* It's an American perennial.

As I age, I want to keep my eyesight,my hearing and remain ambulatory. I want to keep my sharp brain.

And that is already asking for a lot.

Phooey on looking younger. I had my day.
I love my face because it is mine.

Forgot to add, nobody, far as I know dives out of windows, or howls at the moon when I walk down the street. I use Nivea Milk, once worked for the company that makes it, love the way it washes off with water.

Sunscreen works.

First, you nailed it about the overpopulation issue, and I've never seen a single ad for anti-aging cosmetics, or for life-extension sci-fi mention how we'd solve that problem.

Two, I plan to age naturally. I think older people who TRY to disguise their age look silly to most everyone. Don't even get me started on botox or putting butt-fat in lips to make them look obscene.

Third, sometimes I wonder how PR and ad writers sleep at night. They are a big part of the industry that not only makes the older folks feel bad for looking their age, but also bilking folks for stuff that is, let's face it, too often just snake oil.

With you all the way. I'm Celtic...as dappled and dewlapped as the ethnicity dictates. My long, long neck that was so graceful at twenty, now looks like E.T.

There's only so much time, energy, and money available; I'm not going to waste it on trying to imitate someone else's genes. And the same lotion I use on my hands works just fine on my face and neck. If serious science proves me wrong, there are still better things to think about. I love you for posts like these.

As a relative newby to this site, this was my first exposure to a full shot of Ronni philosophy. Right on. I like the skin I'm in. Those few sentences on overpopulation carry a message everybody on this planet should take seriously and act on however they can.

The original Star Trek had a prescient episode in which the inhabitants of the Planet Gideon lived extremely long lives. Their planet had become so overcrowded that they arranged to have one of their people contract a deadly virus in the hopes of thinning the population to livable levels.

Japan is already so overcrowded that they've proposed building Sky City 1000 in which they say around 36,000 people will live and about 100,000 people will work. I read that if Sky City is actually built, some people will likely live their entire lives in it.

Not pretty pictures.

Seems like maybe it's our fear of death that makes us want to find, and drink from, the Fountain of Youth.

Be careful what you ask for.

"What most drives Crabby around the bend, is that none of these people can effectively explain where we are going to put all these people who continue to procreate but never die."

Except that it won't happen that way. You should look at this post:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2006/09/overpopulation.php

and this demographic study on what longevity does to population:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20426616

"A common objection against starting a large-scale biomedical war on aging is the fear of catastrophic population consequences (overpopulation). This fear is only exacerbated by the fact that no detailed demographic projections for radical life extension scenario have been conducted so far. This study explores different demographic scenarios and population projections, in order to clarify what could be the demographic consequences of a successful biomedical war on aging. A general conclusion of this study is that population changes are surprisingly slow in their response to a dramatic life extension. For example, we applied the cohort-component method of population projections to 2005 Swedish population for several scenarios of life extension and a fertility schedule observed in 2005. Even for very long 100-year projection horizon, with the most radical life extension scenario (assuming no aging at all after age 60), the total population increases by 22% only (from 9.1 to 11.0 million). Moreover, if some members of society reject to use new anti-aging technologies for some religious or any other reasons (inconvenience, non-compliance, fear of side effects, costs, etc.), then the total population size may even decrease over time. Thus, even in the case of the most radical life extension scenario, population growth could be relatively slow and may not necessarily lead to overpopulation. Therefore, the real concerns should be placed not on the threat of catastrophic population consequences (overpopulation), but rather on such potential obstacles to a success of biomedical war on aging, as scientific, organizational, and financial limitations."

From a friend:

Saul,

As usual, your words are thoughtful and grounded, and provide a finely calculated balance on this difficult issue. At the heart, you are calling for individual integrity. And that is worth fighting for.

As a cardiologist, I once thought the “ideal” death was to die suddenly. I’ve changed my mind. Two things combined to change my view. One was watching the families of people who died suddenly. They were traumatized, often filled with guilt that their last contact with their loved one had not been loving….

The other factor was watching my wife handling her death. As she became sicker, her soul grew. She became less anxious. She fought her illness until it was obvious that there was no realistic hope. And then turned down her surgeon’s suggestion of surgery in favor of the inpatient hospice. There, surrounded by that loving environment, made comfortable by the skilled practitioners, she had time to speak individually with all of us. She told us she loved us, and how good we all were, and how she appreciated all of us. She apologized for her shortcomings….

We had fun at hospice, sitting outside in the sun. Going together to concerts. She did arts and crafts. We had large raucous parties for our family and friends. And then the pain returned full blown. She asked for more pain medication. I reminded her that she would probably lose consciousness, something she had earlier resisted, and she said “Just do it”. We did. She went to sleep, and 3 days later died as the sun rose.

So I’ve changed my mind. I want time to say goodbye. And “I love you. ” I want to use my time well. Then, when it is time, I want to be able to say “Just do it”, and have my pain eased.

steve.