Our next-door neighbors are in their late sixties.
He will be 70 next year and is physically very active. We often see him passing by on his mountain bike on his way to the nearby woods. She is less mobile (due to a car accident more than 20 years ago), and we hardly ever see her anymore.
Both of them look horribly old for their age, and walk around as if they are shackled by an invisible weight. And that very weight is caused by the holes in their head. They never read a book, they never go to a play, they never read the newspaper nor do they ever try sudokus or crossword puzzles. And they never really have proper conversations as well amongst themselves —
Good authors too who once knew better words Now only use four-letter words. Writing prose, Anything goes.
And so, over the years, they have paralyzed the single most important body part which keeps you alive and kicking: the human brain.
My parents are more than 10 years older, but look so much more lively that the actual age gap is almost impossible to understand. But my parents know and understand that the actual engine of longevity is the brain — and sure, it’s very important to keep your body moving, but it’s even (much) more important to keep the brains thinking.
A healthy brain will also tell you that you have to keep moving, but all the physical exercise in the world won’t make you start reading and the like.
One of the most striking images in memory care units — the spooky closed wards in nursery homes or hospitals which host dementia patients — is the fact that the patients become statues in the end (and typically die early).
The simple truth is that the single most important element of longevity is keeping the brain awake. And so if you let it go asleep like my next-door neighbors —
You body will go asleep quickly too.
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