The secret to eternal youth

One doesn't need to lose all one's teeth, provided one regularly visits the dentist and keeps one's teeth clean and healthy. Doctors say that if only one could exercise regularly and refrain from eating too much fat, one would be less prone to heart attacks. One also doesn't need to become demented, blind, or deaf, if only we observe what newspapers, magazines and is TV tells us.

Oh, and what a lot of threatening illnesses and diseases there are, and a thousand and one rules one should observe to keep oneself in good health and live to a grand old age.

"Well, I don't care. Maybe I will have a shorter life, but I'll make the best it. Why should I bother about not eating this or not doing that?" said my aunt, who suffers from a weak heart and high blood pressure.

What's the sense of living a long life? Even though we could be as old as Methuselah, who is said to have lived 900 years, when living would become a boring routine? Bedtime, 10 o'clock, wake up at six, brush our teeth after every meal, eat so many grams of carbohydrates, drink this many glasses of water, avoid walking in the sun and in the rain and so on. This would make me feel old and feeble.

I admire those who love mountain climbing, parachuting, skiing, motor racing, with all their fatal risks. Jessica Dubroff, still a little girl, died flying her airplane in an effort to realize her dream, to cross the United States.

So, to choose a boring, but healthy and secure, long life, or rather choose a delightful, care-free, adventurous, more dangerous way of living, with the possibility of a shorter life? "Why choose one only? Take both. Have a long life and enjoy it too. Why can't we make them work together? You're never too young to be old," said Si Upik, laughing at her intentional mismatch of the common saying. Instead the song says, You're never too old to be young. That's it. Stay and feel young forever.

CHEW G.H.

Jakarta