Like most people, I want a long life. Every morning, no matter my mood, I spring from bed eager to make dark-roast coffee and buckwheat groats with vanilla protein powder, soy milk, and berries. The more miles on my life odometer, the better—so long as those miles are smooth: no bureaucratic migraines, no addictions, plenty of income, spiritual ballast, connection with others.
That’s why I read Tad Friend’s essay “How to Live Forever and Get Rich Doing It” with interest. Friend profiles 64-year-old Peter Diamandis, an optimist convinced we’re on the brink of breakthroughs: blood filters to block cancer, sound waves to detect strokes, mood-zapping tech for depression. He calls Diamandis “an emissary from the realms of possibility.”
Tech billionaires have practically built vacation homes in the land of eternal youth, wiring obscene sums into anti-aging startups like it’s Monopoly money. Sure, the wealthy already get a 12-year head start on the poor, but most scientists insist the afterparty ends around 90. We’ve smacked into the “biological ceiling.” As for the 900-year marathons of Noah and Methuselah—please. They were breathing alpine air untainted by lead, cadmium, or mercury, not commuting through rush-hour smog in a Tesla.
Diamandis and his circle press ahead anyway, bankrolled by billionaires who can’t resist the dream. Along the way, I learned a new term: hormesis—mild ordeals that supposedly trigger cellular resilience. Exercise? Fine, because it comes with endorphins. Semi-starvation? No thanks—I’m not interested in being hungry and cranky for decades. Cold plunges? Too much Instagram posturing. I’ll splash my face with cold water. That’s good enough for me.
Some biohacks drift so far into self-parody they could headline at a comedy club. Take CAROL, a resistance bike that has you pretend a saber-toothed tiger is on your tail, all in the name of channeling your inner Neanderthal sprinter. As Tad Friend drily notes, Neanderthals weren’t exactly poster children for longevity—they usually tapped out before 30.
Then there’s Bryan Johnson, the longevity poster boy, on a semi-anorexic diet, flexing for the camera, and blasting sound waves through his loins to reclaim teenage virility—an evidence-free vanity project if ever there was one.
Friend notes that many biohackers avoid the news entirely; Diamandis calls it “amygdala-stimulating dystopian clickbait.” Conveniently, this shields him from rebuttals—odd, since science supposedly thrives on them.
Some predictions verge on male fantasy: 100-year-old moguls marrying women half their age and siring fresh broods as proof of potency. Joe Polish, a former collaborator, nails the pitch: “A compelling offer is ten times more powerful than a convincing argument.” Translation: they’re selling a dream, not a reality.
Don’t get me wrong—I want research that crushes heart disease, cancer, stroke, and Alzheimer’s. But even if we slay those dragons, organ and metabolic failure will still get us before 100. Immortality, as marketed here, is mostly grift, mostly ego.
The essay veered into timekeeping, which I track as a watch obsessive. Longevity researchers distinguish between chronological time—the calendar—and biological time, measured through DNA methylation, blood biomarkers, organ imaging, and physical function. Dave Asprey claims his 52-year-old body is 18. I doubt it. Maybe 40 on a good day.
Still, biological age matters. Functional strength predicts survival: slow-walking 85-year-old men die sooner than the fast walkers; those who can bathe themselves outlive those who can’t.
But what does a long life mean? Picture a greedy, paranoid recluse with 5,000 luxury watches, 12 cars, and a private jet, living to 200. That’s not winning—that’s a remake of Citizen Kane.
In the end, spiritual rehab beats the obsessive tinkering of physical micromanagement. Back in the ’80s, a friend told me how cocaine had sandblasted his capacity to care—about his life, his girlfriend, even himself. One night, he woke up under a heap of half-conscious bodies in a party’s stale, smoky gloom. In the corner, through a haze of spilled beer and burnt-out joints, he saw his glassy-eyed girlfriend making out with his equally blitzed best friend. He felt nothing—no jealousy, no rage, just a numb vacancy. Then, from somewhere deep inside, a voice cut through the chemical fog: “Dude, you should care.” The next morning, he checked into rehab and began the slow, grueling work of putting his soul back together.
That’s the missing piece in the longevity movement: not more years, but more humanity. Health matters. Exercise matters. But without soul work, you’re just buying time for an empty vessel.
Cinemorphosis 
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