Has Death Outlived It’s Usefulness?
In a monastery in New Hampshire in 1981, two groups of men in their seventies and eighties relived the 1950s. The men talked about the launch of the first United States satellite and Castro’s victory. They watched Anatomy of a Murder and black and white television and read back-issues of magazines. They engaged in discussions of sports figures of the 1950s. The first group pretended they were really experiencing the 1950s for the first time, whereas the second group simply remembered what it was like to live in that time period.
Afterward, the men’s minds and bodies were tested — both groups performed better physically and mentally. However, the men who pretended they were youthful again, as opposed to those who reminisced, demonstrated a dramatic improvement in performance. The youth had awakened within them.
Most people believe that aging is inevitable, that our bodies decay, a process that culminates in death. Through the study of the two groups of men, psychology professor Ellen Langer found that ideas internalized in childhood can shape the aging process. In fact, research shows that finding the Fountain of Youth is not as far-fetched as it may seem and the potential for immortality lies within our own bodies.
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