Archive for September, 2007
Monday, September 24th, 2007
“Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack”
Henry Miller 1891-1980
All of us realize the importance of exercise to the maintenance of our bodies and to the prevention of ageing.
For what is ageing but the slowing of our body’s machinery as it loses efficiency and begins to seize up?
It’s relatively easy to ignore this process given the effortless ease with which our lives are lived. But every now and then we get a painful reminder that our bodies need regular exercise and without it we cannot perform required or desired tasks with pleasure and competence.
Maybe for you it is when you run around with your kids or grandchildren and find yourself breathless and exhausted very quickly. Perhaps it is when you are confronted with a flight of stairs and dread the task of climbing them.
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Monday, September 10th, 2007
“Keep true to the dreams of thy youth”
Herman Melville 1819-1891
A tiny clipping of the above quote was found glued to the inside of the desk on which the Moby Dick author wrote his final work. The unfinished draft of Billy Budd, Sailor sat atop it, and was dutifully packed away by his widow, to be rediscovered and published in 1924.
This discovery helped ensure Melville’s literary immortality; the adage he treasured helps us kindle the spark of our own youthful passions and in turn keeps us young.
How many of you know some amazing elderly person who defies ageing as they indulge in ballroom dancing, bushwalking or even marathon running, like the oldest finisher ever in the notoriously tough Hawaiian Iron Man?
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Saturday, September 1st, 2007
“Among the islands on the north side of Hispaniola…in which there is a continual spring of running water, of such marvellous virtue that the water thereof being drunk, perhaps with some diet, maketh old men young again.”
Pietro Martire d’Anghiera
1472-1528
Italian geographer and historian
(In a letter to Pope Leo X in 1513)
When Sylvester Stallone came to Australia recently to promote his movie “Rocky Balboa“, about an ageing ex-champ miraculously turning back the clock in the ring, he was detained by Customs due to the presence in his luggage of a large number of mysterious vials. He told the press it was a storm in a teacup and that the substance in the vials was harmless and something he had been taking for years to improve his health and appearance.
He certainly looked great for a man approaching 60.
When his lawyers were obliged to fly to Australia later to attend court, it was revealed that the mysterious elixir was human growth hormone, something his fellow aspirants to youth and good looks have been injecting for years, generating billions of dollars for the doctors who skate around US laws and attract the ire of the FDA as they prescribe it in staggering amounts.
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