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OCTOBER 4, 2019
AIKEN-AUGUSTA’S MOST SALUBRIOUS NEWSPAPER • FOUNDED IN 2006
IS THIS MAN STILL ALIVE?
or the record, we’re happy that Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones is alive. We hope he lives another ninety years. (Just kidding! He’s only 50! He just looks old.) But his longevity (all kidding aside this time: he is 75 years old) does raise a few issues. Why do some people who truly live a healthy life succumb to disease and maybe even death while still in their 20s and 30s? Meanwhile, other people are overweight, get zero exercise, smoke two packs a day and regularly abuse drugs and alcohol, have lived a licentious lifestyle and have basically been hell-raisers for decades, and they live into their 70s, 80s and beyond. For the record (Part II), this article is not saying Keith Richards is guilty of any specific breaches of healthful living. For all we know the cigarettes he is always pictured with are just props. They might be photoshopped in. But the curious and common pairing of non-salubrious lifestyles with lengthy lifespans leads to all kinds of strange reasonings: • “Quit smoking? Why should I? My grandfather smoked five cigars a day starting when he was 8, and he was 93 when he died.” • “Quit smoking? Why should I? My dad never took a single puff in his whole life and he died of lung cancer at age 30.” • “Quit drinking? Why should I? My grandfather finally quit drinking after listening to my grandmother nag him about it for 50 years, and three weeks later a tree fell on him and killed him.” • “Quit doing drugs? Why should I? My buddy never took so much as an aspirin tablet, and he was struck by lightning. So how did that benefit him?” For the record (Part III), one person, even if it’s your best friend, your neighbor, or your own flesh and blood, is a statistically insignificant sampling. What happened to one person is 100% meaningless in its ability to predict how it will affect you or me or anyone else. When a young person who has never smoked gets lung cancer and a geezer who has been a 2-pack-a-day smoker for decades doesn’t, they are both anomalies. The truth about how smoking (or any other vice) affects the majority lies somewhere in the middle. No one ever says, “Of course I let my kids play in that busy road. After all, sooner or later something’s gotta kill ’em.” Yet many people brush off actions that are similarly risky with a shrug, basing their reasoning on the same dark viewpoint. “I might as well [fill in the blank with the vice of your choice]. Something’s going to get me eventually.” Heaven forbid you live too long. Speaking of heaven, there is a whole other branch of fatalism which always invokes the creator in time of tragedy. “The Lord needed another angel.” Let’s ignore the fact that our unfortunate victim was driving 90 mph on the wrong side of the road at the time of his heavenly calling. And that in His infinite
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