The False Friends of Longevity

Back in the retrospectively wonderful days where I had something (anything) to do, a colleague of mine told me about a prototype house in Scandinavia designed with a purpose in mind: to maximise the lifespan of its dweller. Contrary to my initial vision of a light-filled residence equipped with salubrious hot springs, lush gardens and endless stores of Bulgarian super-yoghurt (renowned for its services to long-life), this house is actually the height of uncomfortability. The lounge becomes lumpy and jagged when you settle into it. The toilet administers just-perceptible electric shocks at irregular intervals. The stove emits piercing shrieks as the stir-fry simmers. In short, it is the antithesis of a holiday house: it brooks no form of relaxation whatsoever. This dwelling may not provide the most beauteous of existences (when told about it, I immediately thought of sticking a Romantic poet in there for a few days under the directive 'Celebrate This, Motherfucker!'), but apparently it will provide the longest one. Recreating a constant struggle to survive is the newest technology in the conflict of deferment between life and death. And Scandinavian innovation is once again at the forefront. Pressure-point-poking Armchairs, soon available from Ikea for a meagre 59.95. With some propulsion from smart marketing, we could all be dying extremely slow and painful deaths very soon.

The idea is delightfully counter-cultural. Even if my sources are misinformed, it is the idea (much before implementation is confirmed or not) that raises a host of questions. A core goal of most Western individuals is less work/more leisure, a difficult ratio to change, given that leisure consists not of sitting in a box and gradually moving through a lifetime supply of tin spaghetti, but doing things that cost money and hence (for most) require work: fine dining, travel, entertainment, hobby vices that involve expensive materials (cars, televisions etc). A cross-section of the prescribed lifestyle could be found in any Saturday paper. Lift-out sections cater to the different categories that should interest the comfortable Saturday citizen. Ultimately, the trodden life path of thirty-forty years solid work aims to culminate in no work: retirement floods, and Saturday is every day. Retirement is a holy period, sanctioned and consecrated for all those things we always wanted to do and would have done, had it not been for the trappings of responsible adulthood. A neat symmetry of ring composition seems to govern this pattern of life. The cycle of the working week can microcosmically stand for the cycle of the working life: we're born on a Sunday, put in an honest 37.5 hour week, and have an enjoyable twilit Saturday at the end of it all. Most people would prefer to end it at 12am on Sunday morning, just at the point where they re-descend into the Lord's day of childhood dependence. But even if they live long past this juncture, they can take whatever comfort from the knowledge that Monday morning will never come again. Small consolation in the argument with failing internal organs, I suppose.

The retirement period is a gilt zone for many people, viewed through the lenses of deferment that 'look forward' to the sunny skies of the remote future. Most humans can't help this affliction, a manifestation of the greater disease known simply as 'hope'. Even the direst pessimist can hope things will improve, however bad the predictions the present bodes. Hope can easily grow out of uncertainty, but the zeal with which people look ahead to retirement borders on max-power faith. The statistics of high survival rates in developed nations naturally lead to a very fundamental assumption: that you will be alive for around eighty years in total. And so the likelihood of fulfilling the ideal course - leeching off others for the first quarter, enjoying financial independence for the next two, and rewarding yourself for the last one - is really quite high. Alas, death and taxes. While you're paying the latter, the former could come and transact your vulnerable mortal arse for the last time. Hence the two impulses of consumer behaviour in constant, dynamic tension: to save or to spend. Live slow, die old, live fast, die young, or David Brent's third alternative (hilarious, but to be taken seriously too), live fast, die old. Though coined with tongue-in-cheek, most would admit that this is the golden mean which they are striving for. Maximum quality married to maximum quantity. Our lives should look balanced, like a lovely transaction.

Comfort has always whispered sweet nothings in longevity's ear. The two seem naturally linked; after all, comfort has piles of money to keep purchasing the best chance of survival. But if survival can be improved by reducing comfort, the circuit shorts. It has been observed that long life, as well as bowing to any number of physiological factors, can also be governed by will. Someone who wants to live and still has a clear raison d'etre at an advanced age, all other things being equal, will probably live longer than one who doesn't and hasn't. The constant irritation and vexation employed in this mythical house is as good a reason as any. Life becomes a battle against niggling annoyances; nowhere can a cosy, nested sanctuary be built to insulate yourself from day-to-day difficulties. This is perhaps just another means of extending contact with the 'real', or working, world. Staying in the office an extra ten years may have a similar effect. But it would be a depressing state of affairs if well-off retirees had to resort to buying an expensive palace of anxiety just to satisfy the stress quota necessary for endurance. Why build a gym when you can run in the park? Plenty of opportunities exist for maintaining healthy doses of frustration right to the end, simply by walking out into the street. Deal with the overwhelming bureaucracy and surly public servants, yourself. Fulminate on the poor etiquette of school children on buses, yourself. This is the fun and prerogative of becoming a grumpy old person. Using the dead fruit of your comfort to buy artificial discomfort seems perverse, saltily weird and dystopian. It's also a waste of resources. Discomfort is there in droves, if only you're prepared to harvest it with your own two hands.

Towards the end, in the end (whenever it may come), the discomforts will vary in quality. Small, self-imposed electric shocks in a bubble of other minor irritants I would rate at the lower end of the spectrum; nice acerbic bitterness at the world around I would put towards the top. There is absolutely no joy in living if the only bad elements you have to complain about have been installed by you, questing for life-giving domestic disharmony. Any kind of retraction from the outside world floats the suggestion that death might be a more desirable state of being, and none more than this. Death before dishonour, the dishonour of the incommodious couch. Paying retail price for this Ikea item is one final transaction I hope, indeed trust with full faith, I will never perform.