To Senescence or Not To Senescence

 Senescence is the biological process of aging – the gradual (hopefully gradual) breakdown of our physical bodies as we age and yield to the the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.

 Maybe I'd like to give negligible senescence a try. I mean, if it's working for alligators, tortoises, naked mole rats, and some sharks ... well, it should be fine and dandy for me too. Right?

Negligible senescence is slow to trifling amounts of aging.

Galápagos giant tortoises can live well over 100 years. Charles Darwin’s pet Galápagos tortoise, Harriet, died in June 2006 at the Australia Zoo. Her estimated age was 176. Of course this may just be colorful zoo advertising folderol.  

Ocean quahog clams can live at least 200 years. That could be cool but your diet would consist of microscopic algae and you’d always on the run from rock crabs, sea stars, and random, thuggish gangs of cod. NO thank you!

We have our buddies the Greenland sharks, who I’ve mentioned before. Scientists were using a recently developed method of carbon-dating proteins. They found proteins within one shark’s eyes which put the subject anywhere from 272 to 512-years-old. 

You know what? I think even I would get tired of birthday cake after 500 years. I mean, I DO love my buttercream frosting – the more the better, and please don’t stint on the fondant!

The absolute winner in the age Olympics though is the Great Basin bristlecone pine.

Bristlecone pines are a small group of trees that reach an age believed by many scientists to be far greater than that of any other living organism known to man -- up to nearly 5,000 years.

 The oldest of these near prehistoric pines is a tree nicknamed Methuselah (after Methuselah, the longest-lived person in the Bible). Methuselah is located in the Inyo National Forest and sits in a remote area between California's Sierra Nevada range and the Nevada border.
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The storied bristlecone pines grow in isolated groves at and just below the tree line in mountainous regions of California, Nevada and Colorado. These hardy trees thrive on adversity, living in harsh conditions and high elevation (about 10,000 feet) where little else survives.

Fighting the elements for millennia, bristlecone pines have been exposed to extreme cold temperatures, dry soils, high winds, and short growing seasons. Being in a category known to many scientists as extremeophiles the trees grow very slowly. (source) 

Dunno, the first thousand years might be okay. I could see zenning out, going all Alan Watts-like with the wild weather conditions. You know:

If we live, we live; if we die, we die; if we suffer, we suffer; if we are terrified, we are terrified. There is no problem about it.

Running away from fear is fear; fighting pain is pain; trying to be brave is being scared.

We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.

I know me though – I’m not the most patient person on the planet (UNDERSTATEMENT ALERT!). My zen-like attitude might not make it past the first snowstorm – not if I’m standing out on the side of some damn mountain without a roof, four walls, fleece wrap, a hot toddy and NO WiFi. Fuck no! Yep, I’d make a lousy bristlecone pine. I can’t see me living for 5,000 years.

You know who I bet’s really into the idea of negligible senescence? Elon Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and the rest of those nutbag billionaires. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to read that they were funding research into how to recreate the Greenland shark’s wickedly resilient organs and enhanced DNA repair mechanisms in humans – themselves specifically.

The world really doesn’t need them to live unnaturally long lives. DUH!