A long questionnaire on an university website's life expectancy calculator gave me 26 years more to live. The questions focused on smoking (I dont), driving (I'm careful), type of work (sedentary) and family diseases (heart). 26 years is a good omen when, instead of retiring, I'm embarking in a new business venture. (Pic.: Old Man and Young Woman, by Lucas The Elder Cranach.)
Monday, August 02, 2010
Good Omen
A long questionnaire on an university website's life expectancy calculator gave me 26 years more to live. The questions focused on smoking (I dont), driving (I'm careful), type of work (sedentary) and family diseases (heart). 26 years is a good omen when, instead of retiring, I'm embarking in a new business venture. (Pic.: Old Man and Young Woman, by Lucas The Elder Cranach.)
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7 comments:
If a bald woman is all you can muster, I suggest that you do not bother. North European artists of the Renaissance had the knack of presenting women in an unerotic and ugly light.
She seems pregnant.
This is no better than a gypsy fortuneteller. No one knows how much time they have left. It could be in 40 years, it could be tomorrow.
I think it is important to focus on quality, not quantity. The men I know who are over 90, they're alive but I wouldn't give a nickel for the quality of their life - they're alive but you call that living? On dialysis, with cancer, heart disase, walking with a walker, etc. God forbid.
All the really old people I know are still active and doing stuff, and if the painting is true to life, well, mazel tov, mashallah, knock the bottom out of it. On the other hand, when I did my EMT rotation, I saw a lot of younger old people who, thanks to a combination of age-related conditions, obesity, smoking and numerous drugs having synergistic side effects had lost all but passing semblance of humanity. The nurses shared my observation-"they come in with something bothering them, get a drug prescribed, it has side effects, the doctor prescribes something for the side effects, they get other side effects, go in for treatment and come out in five years on a gurney." So, follow Rasputin's advice, get skinny, keep up your muscle mass and bone density (weights are a good way to go, and judging by your blog entries, your body is producing plenty of testosterone, so should respond well to them,) and stay away from the pills, and I hope to be reading your blog when I'm a grandfather.
I think it's very selfish for old men to father children to give themselves a feeling of still being young and vigorous. The men are sure to die while their child is still very young, leaving it fatherless. Even if the man is rich and leaves money behind, this does not substitute for parental guidance. It's selfish and narcissistic.
I had a (rich) uncle who, though he did not father children in his old age, built a new retirement home for himself shortly before he died (in his 80s). He used to tell me about all the vigorous 100 year olds he saw in Florida and thought that he would be one of them, but the Malach haMoves does not care how much money you have.
K
K
She is pregnant, and the expression on her face tells me the old lecher who is marrying her is not the father.
Anon.
I see that the old lecher is the father. But the point is undecidable.
It is a painting.
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