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Going Gray: A Sign of Healthy Aging.

March 31, 2013 by Exangel

by Matt Stone

Most people think that graying hair is a sign of getting older, of declining physical prowess.  And you know what, those people are absolutely right!  Healthy aging or not, graying hair is a sign of aging and you can be certain that your body is not functioning at its 100% physical peak if you are starting to go gray.  The death countdown has begun.

Disappointed?  Feeling a little misled by the title?

Don’t cry lil’ baby boomer.  This post is not about physical aging and the gray stuff on top of your head.  This is about the gray stuff inside of your head, and you want this to be as gray as possible.

Gray is a blend of black and white.

When we are young, things are black and white.  When our hair doesn’t have a sign of gray in it, we often live in a world of intellectual immaturity and absolute certainty about all things.

Environment good.  Capitalism bad.  Tofu good.  Prime rib bad.  Democrat good.  Republican bad.

Okay that last one wasn’t an example of thinking in black and white but red and blue, which is even worse.  I would watch America’s Least Funny Videos for days on end to avoid the possibility that the remote might die on a news station en route to another channel during campaign season.

I have gone through an extensive graying process personally, and I’m extremely thankful for it.  While life was simple when looking at everything in the world as black and white, side effects included:

• Extreme disdain for everyone who saw white where I saw black, or black where I saw white

• An inability to relate to those who didn’t share the same views

• A sickly, isolating hunt for “like-minded people” for fear of having to mingle with lesser beings (I had to edit out some of the more colorful descriptive words I have used to describe these beings)

• Dramatic overconfidence – I think the word for this is called arrogance, but only heard people whispering this word behind my back

• Harsh rigidity towards life

• Foolhardy, and later very embarrassing attempts to save the world from evildoers (including things like industrial meat, carbs, soy products, cardio, hyperinflation, you name it)

One saying that I’ve transposed into more or less a personal mantra, or even signature perhaps, is:

“Hi, I’m Matt.  I’m an independent health researcher.  I used to know everything but now I’ve learned so much I hardly know anything anymore.”

Take a topic.  Anything.  I’m a health researcher so let’s go with vegetables.  Everybody loves those vegetables.  Most people think they are “good for you.”  But are they?

Vegetables contain high amounts of iron, a potential cause for heart disease and other inflammatory conditions.  Cruciferous vegetables contain a ton of goitrogens that suppress the thyroid.  Some, like spinach, contain oxalates thought to play a causative role in kidney stones.  Some people have bacterial overgrowth of the small intestine (SIBO), which can be exacerbated by eating a lot of fibrous plant matter and cellulose – worsening IBS and some psychological disorders.  Excess beta carotene found in huge abundance in many vegetables, can cause problems as well, including even thwarting Vitamin A uptake.

If you read one source that states that vegetables lower the risk of cancer, or perhaps you saw Jack LaLanne juicing them, you might run around telling everyone to eat as many of them as possible and start drinking a quart of kale juice every day.  With just one small piece of information you become extremely SURE that vegetables are the answer to all the world’s health woes.

Read everything about vegetables – the good, the bad, the ugly, and go through that process of thorough, multi-faceted education on the subject, and where are you?

Uncertain at best.  Not a black and white yes or no.  Far from being a zealot shouting “Broccoli!” from the rooftops and scoffing at all the people who don’t get 28 servings of veggies daily like the Holy, Almighty, Immune and Immortal You.

Uncertainty, and having your feelings not be so strong and sure, is not a sign of weakness.  It is a sign of having grown up.  It’s a sign of being open-minded and educated.  Balanced and fair.  Diplomatic.  Understanding and sympathetic to a wide array of viewpoints.

Be cautious about being so sure about everything, and being rigid in your beliefs.

There are always ways of looking at an issue that you haven’t considered – ways of looking that could very well change your opinion, or better yet, eliminate your narrow-minded opinions altogether.

So, be proud of going gray.

And by the way, sprouting some gray hair just means that you’re probably past the age where you might win the 100M at the Olympics, or throw the game-winning touchdown pass.  It doesn’t mean that you’re unhealthy or about to drop dead of a heart attack or get “The Beetus.”

If anything, consider that gray hair as matching the gray color on the inside, and be glad you’re not a cocky youngster with the answers to all things because you read a book and watched a couple of documentaries.

But maybe I’m wrong about all this.  I don’t know.  I’m not sure of anything these days.

Filed Under: EAP: The Magazine, Spring 2013: Growing Up. Tagged With: nutrition

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In This Issue.

  • Who Was Dorothy?
  • Those Evil Spirits.
  • The Screaming Baboon.
  • Her.
  • A Tale of Persistence.
  • A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.
  • Person Number Twelve.
  • Dream Shapes.
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  • The Muse.
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  • The Greatness that was Greece.
  • 1966, NYC; nothing like it.
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  • The Withering Weight of Being Perceived.
  • Broken Clock.
  • Confession.
  • Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse.
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  • True (from “My Life with Dogs”).
  • Fragmentary musings on birds and bees.
  • 12 Baking Essentials to Always Have in Your Poetry.
  • Broad Street.
  • A Death in Alexandria.
  • My Forked Tongue.
  • Swan Lake.
  • Long Division.
  • Singing against the muses.
  • Aphorisms from “What Remains to Be Said”.

In The News.

That cult classic pirate/sci fi mash up GREENBEARD, by Richard James Bentley, is now a rollicking audiobook, available from Audible.com. Narrated and acted by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio, you’ll be overwhelmed by the riches and hilarity within.

“Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.

This frolicsome tale of skullduggery, jiggery-pokery, and chicanery upon Ye High Seas is brimming with hilarious puns, masterful historical allusions, and nonstop literary hijinks. Including sly references to Thomas Pynchon, Treasure Island, 1940s cinema, and notable historical figures, this mélange of delights will captivate readers with its rollicking adventure, rich descriptions of food and fashion, and learned asides into scientific, philosophical, and colonial history.”

THE SUPERGIRLS is back, revised and updated!

supergirls-take-1

In The News.

Newport Public Library hosted a three part Zoom series on Visionary Fiction, led by Tod.  

And we love them for it, too.

The first discussion was a lively blast. You can watch it here. The second, Looking Back to Look Forward can be seen here.

The third was the best of all. Visions of the Future, with a cast of characters including poets, audiobook artists, historians, Starhawk, and Mary Shelley. Among others. Link is here.

In the News.

SNOTTY SAVES THE DAY is now an audiobook, narrated by Last Word Audio’s mellifluous Colby Elliott. It launched May 10th, but for a limited time, you can listen for free with an Audible trial membership. So what are you waiting for? Start listening to the wonders of how Arcadia was born from the worst section of the worst neighborhood in the worst empire of all the worlds since the universe began.

In The News.

If you love audio books, don’t miss the new release of REPORT TO MEGALOPOLIS, by Tod Davies, narrated by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio. The tortured Aspern Grayling tries to rise above the truth of his own story, fighting with reality every step of the way, and Colby’s voice is the perfect match for our modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

In The News.

Mike Madrid dishes on Miss Fury to the BBC . . .

Tod on the Importance of Visionary Fiction

Check out this video of “Beyond Utopia: The Importance of Fantasy,” Tod’s recent talk at the tenth World-Ecology Research Network Conference, June 2019, in San Francisco. She covers everything from Wind in the Willows to the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, with a look at The History of Arcadia along the way. As usual, she’s going on about how visionary fiction has an important place in the formation of a world we want and need to have.

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