Chapter One
Immortality
Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?
Answer: I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever.
—Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA Contest
Our attitudes toward aging and our responses to the changes in appearance that aging brings are totally colored by our knowledge that we are moving inexorably toward death. It is not my intention to write about death or the fear of dying in this book, but I find it impossible to avoid mentioning them as the source of our negative feelings about aging, which are entirely based in fear.
Some species age more slowly than we do, others more rapidly. I have lived with dogs for many years and have watched several canine companions grow up, grow old, and die. As I write, I am looking at a photograph from severa ...
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