Bryan Johnson, for those of you who have not yet had the pleasure, is a multimillionaire biohacker who has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers online because he plans to live for ever.
His multimillions are being spent on developing ways of defeating pesky ageing and even peskier death. These include but are not limited to: following his Blueprint plan (an extreme $2m (£1.6m) per annum, supplement-laden diet and exercise regime that also includes wearing a sensor on his penis to measure how many nocturnal erections he has (no, I don’t know either – but I gather the higher the number the better; the wearing of a Kernel helmet to pick up on warning signs of unpleasant conditions coming his way so he can spend the remaining years in terror (only joking – he will of course be seeking cures); and having his 17-year-old son’s plasma periodically transfused into him. He used to use anonymous donors but I guess as with money so with blood – it’s nicer to keep it all in the family if you can.
If all this is filling you with envy and a longing to follow the Johnsonian way – and how could it not? – have I got good news for you! For Bryan has just announced his intention to bring his wrinkle-free, death-defying way of (eternal) life within the reach the ordinary (or, at least at first, slightly less multimillionairey) man. Or woman, of course.
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but ageing and death affect, like, EVERYONE. It’s a total disgrace. Initially, his will be a “network nation”, joining likeminded people around the world online, but obviously once the right piece of terra firma has been found, the building of homes and infrastructure that will allow the “don’t die nation state” in which consuming junk food or alcohol would be considered “an act of violence” to become a tangible reality.
It occurs to me that it is not only wealth that is extraordinarily unequally distributed in this world, but many other, more ineffable things too (though they correlate with wealth strangely often, there’s no denying). Entitlement, for instance. Arrogance. Self-belief, if you want to put it more kindly. Self-esteem if you want to put it more kindly still.
Because imagine. Imagine what it must feel like to have that amount of chutzpah running through your veins, to imagine that you can avoid all the ills that flesh is heir to and in the end defeat death itself. That you are able – nay, entitled – to become unique in human history and conquer the single thing that unites us with each other and with every other soul there as ever been since the very dawn of time.
Alternatively, imagine living with a level of fear that could inspire you to devote your life to conquering death. Whatever motivates Johnson or his million “official” devotees and the many more who doubtless follow him more clandestinely, it’s hard to imagine that it’s terrifically mentally healthy, whatever it’s doing for your body-fat percentage.
Whatever way you cut it, acceptance of human corporeal limitations is surely the better way to happiness than this joyless, stunted, algorithmically-dictated carb-free existence? But Johnson et al are the extreme embodiment of a tyranny we all live under – that of high expectations. We do not live in a society that prizes anything other that endless striving, endless hustle.
I bought into it myself for a while, before my natural extreme sloth took over. I’m the lowest energy proposition you’re ever likely to meet. I don’t leave my house from one day to the next. I don’t cook meals that have more than three ingredients (one of them is always potatoes) or use more than two pans. It’s wonderful. My meagre ambition and my low expectations of life (including all people, utility companies and stain removers) have been absolutely fundamental to my contentment: either I have the joy of being proved right, or the delight of having my hopes exceeded. And all my son’s blood stays in his own body, which I cannot help but feel is probably where it should be.
I won’t live for ever. I seriously doubt I’m even maximising whatever potential the genetic gods have gifted me. But I would wager that I’m happier than a man whose topline boast on his YouTube channel is that he is “the world’s most measured human”.
I’ve found the key to happiness and it starts with low expectations
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15.04.2024
Bryan Johnson, for those of you who have not yet had the pleasure, is a multimillionaire biohacker who has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers online because he plans to live for ever.
His multimillions are being spent on developing ways of defeating pesky ageing and even peskier death. These include but are not limited to: following his Blueprint plan (an extreme $2m (£1.6m) per annum, supplement-laden diet and exercise regime that also includes wearing a sensor on his penis to measure how many nocturnal erections he has (no, I don’t know either – but I gather the higher the number the better; the wearing of a Kernel helmet to pick up on warning signs of unpleasant conditions coming his way so he can spend the remaining years in terror (only joking – he will of course be seeking cures); and having his 17-year-old son’s plasma periodically transfused into him. He used to use anonymous donors but I guess as with money so with blood – it’s nicer to keep it all in the family if you can.
If all this is filling you with envy and a longing to........
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