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I will never again use the expression “middle age.”
I can’t believe I once considered naming my blog on Substack “Middle age running.” I thought I’d target a specific demographic group and stand out from an army of bloggers.
The topic of aging can be a delicate one, even when it’s a debate with oneself. One extreme is to pursue youthfulness in a grotesque way — for example, changing your looks with plastic surgeries or having a girlfriend decades younger than you. On the other hand, there are people who accept their aging as something they can’t control. They make little effort to stay active, for example.
I recently met Bryan Johnson, who is trying to reverse aging.
Several months ago, when I first read about Johnson, I wrote a scathing story here on Medium. I thought he was a narcissistic freak.
Even before meeting Johnson in person, however, I reversed my opinion of him. I followed him on social media for perverse reasons — I wanted to see his freakish acts and methods and validate my initial opinion. But I discovered the opposite — his pursuits are genuine and strangely unselfish. He is his own experiment, and he is vocal about his pursuits, so there is an inherent element of self-centeredness. But I never found Johnson narcissistic.
