a day at the races
My grandpa treats longevity as a race. The goal, apparently, is to last longer than everybody else has. During my visit, Grandpa said that, if he lives four more years, he'll have outlived his own father.
In other parts of his life, my grandpa isn't competitive. He doesn't improve his house simply to keep up with the neighbors; he makes improvements to the house because it's the right thing to do. And he also eats nutritiously because it's also the right thing to do, but there's something else there, a type of superiority or control that seems to come, for him, from being fit.
This is, in some ways, a pretty admirable trait. It's not that my grandpa avoids risk or eats a ridiculous monk's diet of only oats and carrots. He's gotten accustomed to healthy food and daily exercise. He's 86 and goes for at least a mile-long walk every morning.
For my grandpa, it's an approach that's worked pretty well. I think he feels that he deserves a certain number of years on this earth, and he's determined not to short himself on that full span.
But sometimes I wonder if the approach makes him unsympathetic to people who haven't been able to enjoy a full life--people who've had their lives cut short by car wrecks, or undeserved cancer, or whatever random events come from the periphery to cut lives short.
In other parts of his life, my grandpa isn't competitive. He doesn't improve his house simply to keep up with the neighbors; he makes improvements to the house because it's the right thing to do. And he also eats nutritiously because it's also the right thing to do, but there's something else there, a type of superiority or control that seems to come, for him, from being fit.
This is, in some ways, a pretty admirable trait. It's not that my grandpa avoids risk or eats a ridiculous monk's diet of only oats and carrots. He's gotten accustomed to healthy food and daily exercise. He's 86 and goes for at least a mile-long walk every morning.
For my grandpa, it's an approach that's worked pretty well. I think he feels that he deserves a certain number of years on this earth, and he's determined not to short himself on that full span.
But sometimes I wonder if the approach makes him unsympathetic to people who haven't been able to enjoy a full life--people who've had their lives cut short by car wrecks, or undeserved cancer, or whatever random events come from the periphery to cut lives short.
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