Last week Ozzy Osbourne died at age 76. Any nutritionist worth their salt will tell you that if you plan to incorporate bat heads into your diet, 76 is a good innings. Osbourne led a generation of musicians who scared Gen-X’s parents into early adult diapers and helped spawn a genre that can be euphemistically described as “musically gifted satanism”.
During the same week Malcolm-Jamal Warner also passed while on holiday with his family. Warner couldn’t be more of the antithesis to “the prince of darkness”. In fact, you could argue that Warner was “the prince of prime-time”. Growing up, he was an important part of the idyllic tableau that Bill Cosby painted with The Cosby Show. Whatever his transgressions behind the scenes, in front of it, Cosby gave the world one of its first, long-running, positive portrayals of black family life. He did that intentionally and probably paved the way for millions to see themselves as more than a subject of trauma porn. Warner played a big part in that. He’d go on to perform a similar role in the hit series Malcolm and Eddie.
While the loss of both is tragic, there's a lesson to be learnt, a lesson I suspect Bryan Johnson and all the influencers trying to turn themselves into immortal jellyfish may have skipped. That lesson is that living long is great, but it's better to live well.
Time for a quick context party. If you haven't been keeping up with the myriad documentaries floating around streaming services these days, Johnson is a creepy guy. He’s no longer interested in ageing and is taking some bizarre steps to ensure it doesn’t happen to him. These include monitoring his 20-something-year-old son’s night-time erections and seeing how his stack up in comparison. His obsession with living long at any cost is the problem here, and his obsession with his son’s dreamscape escapades proves it.
Everyone has some kind of anti-ageing secret. Inspired by Joe Rogan and whichever other influencer swears by the multidimensional healing benefits of moringa, the world seems to be force-feeding us the idea that getting old for the sake of it is something worth pursuing. If we can get to 100 while being able to do backflips and run marathons, then we’ll have scored an A+ on this maths exam called life. But, the truth is, most of us are just trying to get to our 90s, even if by then we look like a leathery sex pot because we have the same fear our parents did: death.
Despite what our local holy person may tell us, none of us really knows what happens when we die. We’d love to envision a posthumous trip to some endless farmer’s market in the sky but we’re not sure. That little niggling fear keeps us holding on. After all, better the devil (or hell) you know.
Eat that bat, go swim with that shark, uncork that overpriced whisky you were saving.
Think of it this way: smoking is bad for you. So is almost all the food we eat and the air we breathe. But a cigarette after some heavy breathing hanky-panky — magnifique! A fresh baked, glazed doughnut and a cup of who-knows-how-ethically sourced coffee, sublime. Sometimes, the most unhealthy thing is the best for your soul. Osbourne knew that — he tried to live well instead of long. Lord knows what his organs looked like, but who cares, he enjoyed the ride. Similarly, Warner died on a family holiday swimming with his kid. Wisdom could have advised him not to take the risk, but he did. His ending wasn't ideal, but if you’ve got to go, splashing about with your kid seems like one of the better options.
In any case, we’re getting too old generally. Most people don’t have enough retirement savings to last for their last 40 years, which means more of them are working well into their twilight years. Why? All so you can live off a fraction of your working salary, attend funerals every weekend, have the grandkids stick you in a corner somewhere at family functions and secretly miss repeating the slurs that made your youth delightful.
I think not.
Hunter S Thompson had the right idea when he said, “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming 'Wow! What a ride'.”
So eat that bat, go swim with that shark, uncork that overpriced whisky you were saving, emulate Mike Tyson and pick a fight with a 30-year-old, get yourself that boy toy and wear that age-inappropriate bikini because you’re chuffed with your Pilates results. Be the hedonist you want to see in the world. You’ll have a lot more fun, make a lot more memories and die young enough to leave a lot more money to your kids.
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