On watching Oprah

I was watching, or rather, listening to an episode of the Oprah Winfrey show the other day, while doing the dishes at the same time. The reason I could only hear it and not watch it was because the kitchen was too far away, and the TV was switched on at full blast, with nobody watching it. I think I just wanted some company while doing the dishes. (So many dishes!)

That day they were talking about physical vs real age. The theory is this, with good eating habits, a healthy lifestyle etc etc etc, a person's real age could be younger than his physical or biological age. So there were these 2 ladies whose real ages were about 10 years younger than their physical or biological ages which is about 60. They not only look younger (And this conclusion is based on the collective gasp I heard from the audience!), but they minds were younger and more active and sharper than a normal 60-year-old!

When interviewed and asked what were their lifestyles secrets to maintaining youthful, they all cited exercise, healthy eating and living as their secret to eternal youth. (I'm thinking plastic surgery also!) They also mentioned one other factor, they all had a hobby or a passion that they pursued in their lives. One was a social volunteer in old folks' homes and orphanages. One spent time gardening and playing golf or something like that. And another one was a dancer. (I was obviously only half-listening, I had to concentrate on not breaking the dishes!)

It later occurred to me that it would have been interesting doing this experiment, to have another control group doing the healthy eating and exercising thing, but take away the hobby, the interest, the passion, and we'll see what happens to this other group. They may just aphyxiate and die out of boredom or something.

Passion. I suspect that's key. It's the essence of living really. It creates an interest in life and all that surrounds life, and as a result, sustains life, and motivates us to preserve and maintain our physical bodies and non-physical beings. Without passion, there is no meaning and interest, and we might just be bored of our wits. People who are passionate about nothing are usually people who are nothing. What we're passionate about determines how how we turn out as a human being. People are passionate about different things - love, money, world domination, plants, birds, so we turn out to be lovers, con-men, Hitler. plant-people, bird-people respectively.

Passion is what really makes us tick doesn't it?

Which brings me to the next point, the non-physical aspect of being. I call that the soul. My friend there's no such thing as a soul, but I don't agree with him; in fact I think he's a little mad.

Our non-physical being is everything else which does not involve our physical aspects (obviously!). The emotions, the will, the intelligence, in other words, the non-physical and non-bodily sustenance of life.

I think our passion and excitement about stuff has to come from somewhere. My soulless friend will probably just put it down to hormones and chemicals that are being produced in our machine/bodies or something. In other words, its all a matter of chemistry. We're all the human version of a bubbling beaker of different combinations of chemicals. The bad-tempered ones just happen to have two non-compatible chemicals inside their bodies resulting in the "kaboom"!

I'm not disagreeing totally that we're well-oiled machines and human chemistry experiments, I'm just not totally agreeing, because I think we have to be more than that, thus making human beings the illogical, unpredictable, spontaneous beings that we are!

We imagine and believe and do incredible things that are logically ridiculous and difficult. We climb mountains at the risk of frostbite and avalanches and possible death. We ride impossible distances in tight bicycle shorts and sitting on teeny and uncomfortable sit that render us potentially impotent.

We pursue impossible dreams and difficult outcomes. We seek for alternative worlds out of our galaxy. We visualise, we conceptualise. We argue that the world is round when everybody thought it was square. We build machines that imitate birds and almost die trying to be a bird. We build wings of wax and fly towards the son.

We conquer kingdoms for the sake of love and pride and showing off. For the sake of love, we become super human. We can run faster than a speeding bullet, lift heavy weights, for the sake of the love of our offspring. We stay when we should walk away from a non-profitable and non-beneficial relationships. We stick through thick and thin through death and diseases and even infidelity.

We hope against hope and work against reason to save the dying, feed the hungry, quench the thirst of knowledge and to keep hope alive in people who might have been better left for dead because the world has nothing to offer them.

Show me people that behave as people should. And I'll show you a world devoid of life and passion and love and ridiculous mistake and foibles and generally unliveable and boring.