People need renewal. Joseph Coughlin of the AgeLab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, wants to give it to them. He and his team study the problems of aging through life, problems we all must experience, and tries to produce marketable solutions to ease the process. You would think this would be a universal market, but there is a problem with that, which I will get to in a minute. Caughlin says this:

“From zero to twenty-one is about eight thousand days. From twenty-one to midlife crisis is eight thousand days. From mid-forties to sixty-five—eight thousand days. Nowadays, if you make it to sixty-five you have a fifty-per-cent chance you’ll make it to eighty-five. Another eight thousand days!"

That's it, a rare few get a bit more that 85 useful years, but not most of us. Even in this modern age we normally get four, or maybe five, life-eras of eight thousand days each. That is supposed to be more than earlier generations, but guess what, 3,000 years ago people had about the same expectation. The Psalmist wrote:

"The days of our years are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty years; yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for it passes quickly, and we fly away." Psalms 90:10

For me, that verse from 3,000 years ago disagrees with the current theme that modern people are living so much longer today than they did thousands of years ago. The truth is, the needle on mankind's age-meter hasn't significantly moved forward in 3,000 years, despite the best efforts of researchers like Mr. Coughlin.

This brings us to the stereotype of crotchety old people that younger folks often like to make jokes about. Sometimes it's true that seniors can be snippy, and the reason isn't hard for other seniors to comprehend. The reason is non-stop perpetual aggravation. The fact is, as you move through those four or five era's of life you keep losing more and more of what you started out with, including bodily capacities. That translates into a lot of frustration over normal simple problems as those losses heap up over time. The Psalm calls it "labor and sorrows" - and that makes some people kind of snippy sometimes. If you don't understand that right now, don't worry about it, you will.

If you've gotten this far reading these comments you are a rare person indeed. Why do I say that? It's because of something Mr. Coughlin at the AgeLab has discovered. The New Yorker article where I learned all this about Mr. Coughlin and the AgeLab explains:

"The work of the AgeLab is shaped by a paradox. Having been established to engineer and promote new products and services specially designed for the expanding market of the aged, the AgeLab swiftly discovered that engineering and promoting new products and services specially designed for the expanding market of the aged is a good way of going out of business. Old people will not buy anything that reminds them that they are old. They are a market that cannot be marketed to .... We would rather suffer because we’re old than accept that we’re old and suffer less." [https://www.newyorker[dot]com/magazine/2019/05/20/can-we-live-longer-but-stay-younger]

Most humans seem to have a mental block against accepting their mortal condition. They just block out anything that reminds them of that truth. As a minister of the Word, I get that completely. For over fifty years of my life I've been telling people the obvious truth, that they need renewal, and the only way they will get it is through embracing the Lord of Life, the Messiah. Most don't listen or say they will get to that later, for the same reason they don't want to hear about Mr. Coughlin's innovations seeking to ease the problems of aging. They simply won't "buy" anything that tells them they are not immortal, even if it is the obvious truth. I came to understand the nature of that irrational block many years ago. That's when I gave up on the idea that I can break through that barrier with any individual. I can't. Only God can do that. If you haven't been born anew, it can still happen for you. I pray you will man up and talk to God about it, while you still can. 

Eliyahu
Tsiyon.Org

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