Anti-aging mogul who used son as 'blood boy' reveals his incurable diagnosis



Bryan Johnson, the transhumanist founder of the neurotechnology company Kernel, sold his digital payments company Braintree to eBay Inc. for $800 million in 2013, then pursued his bio-hacking obsession headlong, tinkering with his body in the hope of pausing the aging process and potentially even evading death.

In a 2023 interview with Bloomberg, Johnson revealed that in addition to staying out of the sun, he was preparing to invest at least $2 million on his body with the aim of having the body and organs — penis and rectum included — of an 18-year-old. To this end, he hired a team of over 30 doctors and health experts to monitor his every bodily function.

'My stomach is eating itself.'

"What I do may sound extreme, but I'm trying to prove that self-harm and decay are not inevitable," Johnson said just months before supplementing his usual supply of rejuvenating plasma from so-called blood boys with blood from his son.

Johnson, who calls himself "the healthiest person alive" and founded the "Don't Die" health cult, revealed last week that he has been diagnosed with an incurable disease.

"Bad news #1: I have an autoimmune disease. My stomach is eating itself," the middle-aged transhumanist wrote in an X post.

"Good news: I'm going to try and solve it," he added.

Johnson suggested that he developed autoimmune gastritis during a period in his life when he was juggling "stress and grind" and let his health slip.

Autoimmune gastritis is an inherited chronic inflammatory disease that occurs when an individual's immune system attacks their stomach lining cells. According to the Cleveland Clinic, this condition can lead to an increased risk of developing small neuroendocrine tumors in the stomach and an increased risk of gastric cancer.

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"I just discovered it in May. I'm unsure how long I've had it," the transhumanist said. "AIG causes irreversible damage: nutritional deficiency, anemia, and over a long horizon, elevated cancer risk. When AIG is discovered today, standard medical care concedes defeat, stating that nothing can be done except managing the condition, no matter how awful or lethal the effects."

Johnson indicated further that his supposedly healthy living regimen failed to address his low iron levels.

'Bro so busy trying to not die he forgot how to live.'

Autoimmune gastritis destroys the stomach's parietal cells, which reduces secretion of the gastric acid required for absorption of inorganic iron.

Only after the supposed "healthiest person alive" overhauled his medical team and underwent further testing was his incurable condition revealed.

While there is presently no cure for autoimmune gastritis, Johnson said that he and his team are "going to try and solve my AIG."

Johnson's non-terminal diagnosis appears to have only worsened his health obsession.

"We fill our days mostly on things that are trivial next to what we ultimately care about. We know, deep down, however, that in the noise of it all, health is easily forgotten until it’s the only thing that matters," the transhumanist wrote.

Bryan did not immediately respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

Following his disease reveal, Johnson lashed out at those whose who, according to his paraphrase, suggested that "bro so busy trying to not die he forgot how to live."

In response, the transhumanist offered a pessimistic and reductive interpretation of the world, suggesting that people ultimately construct personas to shield themselves "from the terror of their inevitable death," then "to make this irreconcilable pain invisible to themselves, they dissolve themselves into the group and enact its rituals."

He proceeded to characterize himself as a heroic figure — the "abstainer" from "societal death rituals" who "reveals to the room that they are drunk."

According to the transhumanist — who takes hundreds of pills a day, follows a strict plant-based diet, has injected some of his son's blood, and has spent a fortune in a futile attempt to stave off the inevitable — Johnson's critics aren't troubled by his decisions but by "their reflection in the mirror."

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The new kid in the waiting room



The receptionist asked me to verify my date of birth.

I gave her Gracie’s.

For years, I have encouraged fellow caregivers to pay attention to their own health rather than waiting until a crisis forces the issue. This experience has only reinforced that conviction.

She glanced down at the chart in her hand and then back at me with a puzzled expression. Before she could say anything, I caught myself.

“Oh ... that’s my wife’s birthday.”

After 40 years as a family caregiver through surgeries, appointments, hospital admissions, medications, insurance forms, and enough medical paperwork to clear a small forest, I had automatically answered with the date I have given thousands of times before.

This time, however, I was the patient.I was at the cancer center for imaging and treatment planning in preparation for radiation therapy for prostate cancer. Thanks to routine screenings and excellent physicians, it was caught early. The prognosis is excellent.

Still, it felt strange.

I have spent most of my adult life in hospitals because of someone else. This time, they called my name.

Looking around the waiting room, I realized I was easily the youngest man there. That does not happen to me very often anymore. Later, one staff member told me most of their patients are in their 70s and beyond. Sometimes, they see men in their 60s like me, and every so often someone in his 50s.

For this visit, I was the new kid.

I took a chair off to the side, careful not to intrude on this fraternity of men who seemed to know the ropes. They reminded me of the old men who gathered at Nick’s grocery and gas station near my childhood home in rural South Carolina. As a boy, I would stop in for a soda and candy bar while they held court around the coffee pot, solving problems that ranged from weather and crops to politics and church business.

The subjects changed from day to day. The cadence never did.

Men of a certain age possess a remarkable conversational gift. They can begin with trout streams and end with urologists without anyone noticing where the turn occurred.

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True to form, this conversation drifted toward prostate cancer, treatments, and the assorted indignities that accompany aging. One fellow described an examination during which the sheet covering him slipped.

Before he could react, the nurse matter-of-factly told him, “Don’t worry. If I see something I’ve never seen before, I’ll kill it.”

Such is the sort of thing you expect to hear in a cancer clinic in Montana.

The men laughed.

I raised an eyebrow and thought, “How comforting.”

But I still laughed.

Soon enough, they called me back. The technicians positioned my legs, explained the process, and slid me into a machine that looked remarkably like something from an old “Star Trek” episode. If memory serves, it resembled the device that kept Spock alive after somebody stole his brain.

After the instructions were complete, they eased me into position and left the room.

A few minutes later, one of the technicians returned looking slightly sheepish.

“We have a bit of a challenge.”

“Do tell,” I replied.

“There’s a gas bubble.”

The expression on my face evidently communicated that I was not following.

She delicately clarified.

“It’s in ... you.”

“Oh.”

I considered several responses, including one with my outstretched index finger that would have made my four brothers proud and the medical staff considerably less appreciative. Fortunately, decades of maturity prevailed.

“What do you recommend?” I asked.

“Maybe take a walk and see if anything happens.”

So there I was, strolling through the halls of a cancer center, trying to solve a problem that five boys growing up under one roof would have regarded as entirely manageable without professional consultation. At times, our household rivaled the campfire scene in “Blazing Saddles.”

The problem was that they had instructed me to drink a substantial amount of water beforehand to achieve the proper imaging. Solving one problem too enthusiastically threatened to create another.

Men over 50 approach certain situations with caution for good reasons.

Eventually, however, everything worked itself out.

Ahem.

The imaging was completed, the planning was finished, and in a few days, I will return to begin treatment.

As I left, I noticed the bell hanging in the hallway. I have seen bells like that before. Patients ring them when treatment ends.

Lord willing, I will ring that bell myself within a month.

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Driving home, I thought about those older men in the waiting room. None of them appeared eager to be there, but neither did they seem intimidated by it.

They knew where to park. They knew where the coffee was. They knew which jokes were worth telling.

In short, they knew the territory.

Eventually, if you stay on any road long enough, you stop asking for directions and start giving them.

One day, perhaps sooner than I would like to admit, I may be the guy telling stories to the new kid who walks through the door — even if the story involves a gas bubble that needed to be walked off.

For years, I have encouraged fellow caregivers to pay attention to their own health rather than waiting until a crisis forces the issue. This experience has only reinforced that conviction.

Prostate cancer is often called a silent disease.

Mine was.

Fortunately, silent does not have to mean deadly.

Against plastic surgery: Why I never trust an old person without wrinkles



“Our earth in 1969 / Is not the planet I call mine,” W.H. Auden declares at the outset of his late poem "Doggerel by a Senior Citizen." While acutely aware of the youth revolt then transforming the culture around him, Auden makes it clear that he is perfectly happy being stuck in the past:

Then Speech was mannerly, an Art,
Like learning not to belch or fart:
I cannot settle which is worse,
The Anti-Novel or Free Verse.

Nor are those Ph.D’s my kith,
Who dig the symbol and the myth:
I count myself a man of letters
Who writes, or hopes to, for his betters.

Dare any call Permissiveness
An educational success?
Saner those class-rooms which I sat in,
Compelled to study Greek and Latin.

Though I suspect the term is crap,
There is a Generation Gap,
Who is to blame? Those, old or young,
Who will not learn their Mother-Tongue.

These verses display a quality seldom found among today’s aging cultural figures: a complete lack of interest in courting the approval of the young. Auden was 62 when he wrote the poem; how many sexagenarians in 2026 would willingly describe themselves as "senior citizens"?

Even as counterfeit youthfulness fails to convince actual young people, it can offer them a useful warning signal.

Nor did the legendary poet make much effort to conceal the fact of his age. By then his face had become famously craggy and weathered, prompting him to quip that it resembled "a wedding cake left out in the rain."

Perpetual maidenhood

As it happens, it was a wedding cake that helped launch pop star Madonna to worldwide fame. At the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards, the then-relatively unknown 26-year-old emerged from a 17-foot-tall, three-tiered prop cake in bridal white to perform "Like a Virgin."

Today, Madonna is five years older than Auden was when he wrote "Doggerel." It goes without saying that as a celebrity of a certain age, she has availed herself of the surgical remedies available to those with sufficient means. And she has achieved the familiar effect: She does not look old, exactly, though neither would anyone mistake her for young. Nor does she look particularly like Madonna.

In keeping with this perpetually "youthful" image, Madge continues to perform in the same kind of skimpy stage lingerie she wore in her 20s. Perhaps aware that the effect of such outfits is now more nostalgic than erotic, she has increasingly devoted herself to courting her sizeable gay male fan base. Yet even here she appears reluctant to surrender her claim on youth culture, recently "taking over" the gay hookup app Grindr to promote her latest album.

Withered wisdom

Whatever one thinks of her music, Madonna long ago secured her place in the cultural pantheon. She has nothing left to prove. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine that she doesn’t have something to teach. You don't survive five decades in the public eye — weathering shifts in fashion, technology, and taste that bring lesser stars crashing back to earth — without learning a few things. But imparting the wisdom that comes with age and accomplishment would require shedding the past-its-sell-by-date "boy toy" packaging.

Many of us who aren’t famous must contend with this dilemma too. Even as a child, I cringed at the efforts of some adults to be “relatable” to me, abdicating their natural authority as if it would gain them back a few lost years.

Now, as a teacher slowly approaching my own Auden/Madonna crossroads, I hate to admit that I’ve at times found myself tempted to play the “cool” adult. Experience has taught me, however, that this pose has diminishing returns — especially in the classroom.

It also indicates a deeper moral and spiritual rot, as the late historian Christopher Lasch reminds us in his 1979 book “The Culture of Narcissism.”

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Cult of youth

Lasch’s thesis — which remains all too relevant almost half a century later — is that our modern “cult of youth” is emblematic of the nihilism and anxious obsession with the present that has overtaken so many. As he writes:

In a society that dreads old age and death, aging holds a special terror for those who fear dependence and whose self-esteem requires the admiration usually reserved for youth, beauty, celebrity, or charm. The usual defenses against the ravages of age — identification with ethical or artistic values beyond one’s immediate interests, intellectual curiosity, the consoling emotional warmth derived from happy relationships in the past — can do nothing for the narcissist.

It's not that fillers and facelifts can’t be used with subtlety and restraint — although this rarely seems to be the case. It’s that even the most imperceptible plastic surgery suggests surrender to this nihilistic worldview. The passage of time doesn’t lead us to some greater meaning; it can only offer us decay. Where these fragile vessels take us is either unknowable or irrelevant; the important thing is to keep the paint fresh.

God's design

This approach to physical decline may be dominant, but there remains another way. For every Madonna, we have the counter example of women like Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, and Meryl Streep, who embrace their age with elegance. The cliché rings true: Real physical attractiveness begins with inner confidence and manifests outwardly from within.

Even as counterfeit youthfulness fails to convince actual young people, it can offer them a useful warning signal. “Don’t look to me for guidance,” it seems to say. “I’m as clueless as you are.” When I need advice, when I need someone to help me view the everyday grind from a broader perspective, wrinkles and gray hair offer a certain guarantee.

They also offer me hope, especially as my own glances in the mirror become more fraught — hope that I, too, will find the serenity to resist the course of nature and the grace to accept God’s design.

Aging is inevitable — catastrophic decline is not



You're likely familiar with the cultural script on aging.

It reads less like a list of life stages and more like a slow-motion obituary. Hit 50, and the back gives out. Hit 60, and the memory springs a leak. Hit 70, and sleep comes in seven installments, courtesy of the bladder. Hit 80, and people start congratulating you for standing up. Hit 90, and they congratulate you for waking up.

Consistency, the least marketable word in wellness, turns out to be the key to thriving well past retirement age.

The script is, and always was, a lie.

Boomer bashing

My Irish grandmother is in her 80s and still as sharp as a tack. She remembers names, dates, family scandals, who owed whom money in 1987, and every embarrassing thing any grandchild ever did. You don’t win an argument with her. If you’re lucky, you survive it. She runs mental laps around people half her age. She’s not an anomaly or some statistical freak. This is what a properly engaged human brain looks like in its ninth decade.

So why does society treat people like her as exceptions to a rule that isn't real? Because ageism remains the last fully acceptable prejudice in America and beyond.

Try selling a birthday card that mocks any other group. Now walk into any drugstore and count the ones mocking the elderly. There's a whole aisle. Sitcoms cast grandparents as lost souls who can barely use a cell phone. Tech companies build entire pitch decks around how hopelessly out of touch anyone over 40 has become.

"OK, Boomer" was marketed as a joke. In reality, it was thinly veiled contempt, aimed at the very people whose work made possible the lives of those mocking them. The bias is so normalized that it barely registers as bias, which is exactly how the worst ones operate. And ageism is the most destructive of them all. Every other prejudice targets a group most of us will never belong to. Ageism targets the group nearly all of us will join.

Brain boost

That casual contempt fuels the narratives about aging more than biology ever did. Tell a population for 50 years that decline is destiny, and the population obligingly declines. Tell people they become invisible at 60, and many will retreat into the shadows.

The trouble is that the data has stopped cooperating with the cruel, condescending script.

A recent study from the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas at Dallas suggests it never should have. Researchers tracked nearly 4,000 adults between the ages of 19 and 94 across three years and found measurable improvements in brain performance at every age. People in their 70s and 80s improved. Some of the biggest jumps came from those who started with the lowest scores. The brain behaves less like a dying battery and more like a muscle. Train it, and it adapts. Ignore it, and it atrophies.

And by training, I don’t mean learning Mandarin or memorizing pi to a thousand digits. Small daily habits did most of the heavy lifting. A few minutes of intentional mental work: a crossword, sudoku, some journaling. Real conversation with real humans. No magic pills, no ice baths, no hyperbaric chambers in the garage. Consistency, the least marketable word in wellness, turns out to be the key to thriving well past retirement age.

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Geriatric gains

Aging is real, of course. Time charges rent. But modern culture keeps confusing aging with abandonment, and those are entirely different events.

Consider muscle loss. The standard line is that getting weaker after 60 is simply nature taking its course. But research on resistance training in older adults keeps producing very different results. Nursing homes that add basic strength programs see residents regain and even improve their balance and mobility.

The brain, as the aforementioned study shows, follows the same pattern. Older cab drivers memorizing routes, musicians practicing scales, retirees picking up chess, grandparents who refuse to stop hosting Sunday dinner: These people keep their wits because their wits never get a day off.

Meanwhile, plenty of 35-year-olds are already mentally cooked. Screen addiction, sleep deprivation, isolation, ultra-processed food, chronic stress, and the dopamine slot machine in everyone's pocket are producing cognitive burnout in people who still rely on Mommy and Daddy for money. A 20-year-old flicking through TikTok at red lights may have a shorter attention span than a 60-year-old who reads two books a month and still finds silence tolerable.

Seasoned seniors

The myth that older people cannot learn is exactly that — a myth, and a lazy one. They process some things more slowly, then make up the difference with pattern recognition, emotional regulation, and the kind of patience that only comes from having already survived the worst version of yourself. Communities that lose their elders lose their memory. Civilizations that worship only youth end up run by impulsive adults trapped in permanent adolescence, which explains a great deal about the past few decades.

Emotionally, older adults often report more gratitude, steadiness, and perspective than they had at 30. After enough funerals and failures, trivial drama loses its grip. An 80-year-old who buried a husband and raised five kids on a tight budget has a much more grounded perspective on reality than a heavily medicated influencer melting down over a comment thread.

The brain stays dynamic longer than anyone assumed. The body stays trainable longer than anyone assumed. The real tragedy isn't aging but how early people are taught to give up on themselves.

There is your chronological age and your biological age, and the two are often barely on speaking terms. Plenty of 40-year-olds are running on fumes and ibuprofen. Plenty of 80-year-olds are operating with the energy and mental wattage of someone half their age. My grandmother certainly is.

The secret to senior softball? It's all about the magic bat



I always liked team sports, so when I got old enough, I signed up for senior softball.

At our first game, I showed up with an old mitt and a small aluminum bat I dug out of my sister’s garage. I didn’t really know what level senior softball was going to be. I figured this mitt and bat would be good enough. If not, I could upgrade.

Another guy couldn’t seem to get a hit with it. He seemed perplexed and somewhat disturbed that there was a special bat for old people.

That bat, it turned out, was for girls. Like girls ages 8 to 12. It was about a foot shorter than a normal bat.

I didn’t know this at the time. I leaned it against the wall in the dugout. When the coach saw it, he turned toward us players: “Whose bat is this?!”

I admitted it was mine. He glared at me and said, “Get this thing out of here! If you don’t have a real bat, borrow one from the other guys!”

I grabbed the bat, hurried to my car, and stashed it in the trunk.

Magic stick

So then I had to borrow another guy's bat. I didn’t know anyone on the team yet. I wasn’t sure how to go about it.

The other bats looked pretty high-tech. Most of them looked new. I didn’t want to scuff up somebody’s brand-new bat. Fortunately, when it was my turn at the plate, one of the guys handed me his.

I hadn’t played softball in many years, so I was pretty nervous. The first pitch came, and I swung late and hit a bloop single over the first baseman’s head.

I hadn’t hit it very hard. I was surprised the ball went so far. I ran to first base. I had my first hit.

The next time I was up, I used that same bat, and this time I made solid contact. The ball flew over the shortstop’s head. It went farther than I’d ever hit a softball. It was almost unnatural how far it went. It was like magic.

'We have the technology'

Later, I asked the guy about his bat. He said it was a senior softball bat. All the bats in the dugout were senior softball bats. That’s what everybody had.

When I went up a third time, I hit a grounder. But it bounced hard and skipped passed the third basemen for another hit.

Back in the dugout, I asked a different guy, “What’s up with these bats?” He said it was a special design. Senior softball bats were made of advanced materials. They were more flexible. The bat gave a little when it made contact. And then the ball “trampolined” off it with extra force.

He showed me the little inscription on the bat that said it was specifically authorized by Senior Softball-USA, the world's largest senior softball association.

“Wow,” I said. “So we have our own bats.”

“Yes, we do,” he answered.

Sweet spot

At the next game, another guy showed up with a bunch of old senior softball bats he wasn’t using anymore. He had brought them for me. If I liked one of them, I could buy it from him.

He told me to try them out, see which one I liked. The first one I tried, I blasted a base hit between the outfielders. “I’ll take this one,” I told him.

And the next week, I gave him a hundred bucks.

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Softball shaman

Once I saw how fun senior softball was, I tried to find ways to get extra practice. A younger woman I knew invited me to a pickup game she played in.

These were young people, mostly in their 20s and 30s. They were good players, much better than I was.

When it came time for me to bat, I used my new senior softball bat and hit a deep ball into left field. Everyone was like, “Wow, you really got a hold of that one.”

The next time I was up, I hit another deep ball. People were surprised, shocked even.

“It’s the bat,” I told them. “It’s a senior softball bat.”

They had never heard of such a thing. They wanted to see it. I showed them the little inscription that said: Senior Softball-USA.

“It’s a special design,” I said. “It’s bouncier. Like a trampoline.”

They all felt the bat. They studied it. It didn’t look any different than their bats.

“Try it,” I told them. So they did. One guy, who could already hit the ball a mile, hit the ball a mile.

Another guy couldn’t seem to get a hit with it. He seemed perplexed and somewhat disturbed that there was a special bat for old people.

Another guy got a solid hit, but he didn’t seem particularly impressed. All these guys were really good hitters to start with. My special bat didn’t seem to do that much for them.

I said, “Maybe you have to be a senior to activate the technology.”

Team dream

I made it through that first season. It was a great experience. And being around my teammates reminded me how much skill and competence your average person over 50 represents.

Like the senior softball bat: They had integrated this new technology into their sport in just the right amount. It didn’t significantly alter the game; it just made it a little more fun.

But being on a team. That was the best part. I’ve been a writer all my life. Sitting in a room. By myself. Thinking my thoughts.

What a relief to be with the guys. On a beautiful spring day. In the dugout. With my magic bat.

All downhill from here: An aging hot dog hangs up his skis



I was living in Brooklyn at the time. I was 40-ish. I went home to Oregon for the Christmas holidays, and one of my siblings suggested we go skiing.

We were a skiing family when we were kids. In my teens, I skied nearly every weekend for several months of the year. I got pretty good at it and have fond memories of those days.

I remembered a doctor on TV saying something like: 'Most injuries I see are older people trying to do things they did when they were young.'

But I had not skied or ridden a chairlift in 20 years. The idea of going again seemed really fun. Why hadn’t we thought of this before?

Toys in the attic

Most of my old ski stuff was still around my parents’ house. I found my slightly rusted skis in the attic. My old Nordica ski boots still fit. I dug up some musty ski gloves and a ski hat and some old goggles. I wasn’t going to look fashionable or current, but I had the necessary stuff to ski down the mountain.

I would be like the eccentric older guys I occasionally rode the chairlift with when I was a teenager. Guys with ancient-looking skis and out-of-date parkas and mittens. Skiing wasn’t a social activity for them. They didn’t mind looking out of place. They were just there for the skiing.

Runnin’ up that hill

My siblings and I drove up to Mt. Hood Meadows and bought our lift tickets. We rode up the chairlift, which all by itself was thrilling.

To actually ski felt weird at first. I did a couple of snow-plow turns, then a couple of real turns, and then I was more or less back to form.

The ski trails were mostly the same. I remembered them from high school. But other things had changed. The skis were shorter and oddly shaped. People wore helmets. There were snowboarders to contend with. And of course, everyone was younger and speedier than I remembered.

After a couple easy runs, I was feeling pretty confident. I decided to check out some of the more difficult trails. So I dragged my brother over to one of the black diamond runs.

Looking down into it, I was shocked by how steep and formidable it looked. I used to ski down this? And then some 12-year-old shot past me and went flying straight down the face of it.

I decided against following him, and instead we found a trail that went along the ridge. Here we encountered a “jump.”

This was not a jump like you see on TV, where you do two back flips and a triple twist. This was a little bump off to the side of the trail, where if you could build up enough speed, you might go two or three feet into the air and land six feet from where you started.

Still, I’d loved jumps when I was a kid. My body reacted to the sight of it so strongly, I immediately sped up and steered right at it.

Unfortunately, it turned out to have a badly shaped landing. You basically stopped dead when you hit. I nearly rolled forward out of my ski boots. It was so jarring, I felt queasy in my stomach.

And then I had to get out of the way, so someone else could have that same experience.

Slow your roll

So that’s how it went. I found that I got bored cruising the easy runs. But whenever I tried something hard, I was outmatched.

After lunch, I made the decision to stick to the intermediate runs. I would do like the other middle-aged people, carving wide, graceful turns, taking it easy, getting into that elder-skier groove.

But then my problem became speed. Each time I did a run, I went a little faster. Soon, I was going a little too fast. But I couldn’t resist that downhill racer sensation.

And then I fell. I don’t know how. I must have “caught an edge.” One moment, I was leaning into a turn, and the next, I was face-planted into the hard pack.

I came to my senses with a face full of snow and my skis, hat, and goggles scattered all around me.

My brother pulled up behind me. He was scared. He said my wipeout looked bad. I told him it felt bad. Though as far as I could tell, I wasn’t seriously injured.

I sat there for several minutes, making sure I was OK. Then I rose to my feet. Eventually, I put my skis back on. Very gingerly, we made our way down.

But by the time we reached the chairlift, I felt fine. I was OK. And there was still time for a couple more runs. I assured my brother I could continue. And we got back in line.

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Dazed and confused

Riding the chairlift was when I realized something wasn’t right. My brain seemed slow. I couldn’t seem to focus. I would look at things and not really see them. Everything felt weird and slowed down and unreal.

I must have a concussion, I thought. So I gave myself a simple concussion test. What was my phone number? I thought about it. I thought about it more. I had no idea.

What about my address? What city did I live in? I couldn’t seem to hold any clear thought in my head.

I explained to my brother what was happening. He was concerned. We did one last easy-does-it run. Then we headed home.

Dark night of the soul

That night, back at my parents’ house, I did the concussion protocols. I stayed awake for 12 hours, took aspirin, drank water, lay on the living room couch, perfectly still, with a dark towel over my eyes. I now had a very sore neck and back. I could barely move. I probably had whiplash.

I was OK in the end. But that was a scary day. As I lay silent and still on the couch, I remembered a doctor on TV saying something like: “Most injuries I see are older people trying to do things they did when they were young.”

That was definitely me. I guess I learned my lesson. But I’d also learned the lesson that — for me at least — the desire to do those things, even when I KNEW I SHOULDN’T DO THEM, could be overwhelming.

In other words, it was best for me to stay off the ski slopes entirely. And maybe take up some new activities, things I’d never done before. Like softball. Or surfing. Or golf. Activities where memories of youthful glory wouldn’t get me into trouble.

You can't be 50 in Hollywood



I had been living in New York for several years, writing young adult novels. But I wanted to move to Los Angeles. I needed a change of scenery, and I wanted to try screenwriting.

A friend connected me to a guy who had spent several years in L.A. pursuing film and TV writing. I called the guy and told him my plan.

The hair dye felt like it was burning my scalp. After I rinsed it out, my whole head glowed. Did it make me look younger? I guess it did. But it also made me look like a clown.

He said: “How old are you?”

I said 49.

He said, “That’s too old. You can’t be 50 in Hollywood. You’ll need to lie about your age.”

Then he asked me if I had gray hair. I said I did. He said I would need to dye it.

I said, “But George Clooney has gray hair. Doesn’t it look distinguished?”

He said I would definitely want to dye it. “Everyone dyes their hair in L.A. Get a good hairdresser.”

*******

He continued relating his experiences. He listed the dangers of Hollywood. They steal your ideas. They lie. They pretend to be your friend. I would need a good lawyer, and a manager, and an agent.

Most of this I already knew. But the “you can’t be 50 in Hollywood” part: I hadn’t heard that before.

Reelin' In the Years

After we hung up, I thought about the age problem. I had already “adjusted” my age once while I was writing young adult novels.

I did this after attending a book festival, where I saw that all the other young adult authors were generally in their 20s and 30s. I was at least a decade older than most of them.

So I shaved five years off my Facebook age. Just in case anybody looked. And then I did the same thing when I filled out the publicity questionnaires for my publisher.

But the age problem got worse when I arrived in L.A. The first screenwriter I met with was 24 and looked like he was in high school. When I got home from that meeting, I went on Facebook and shaved three more years off my birthday.

When I did this, a little notice popped up, informing me that this would be the last time I would be allowed to change my birthday on Facebook.

So now, I was 41 according to Facebook, 44 according to my New York publisher, and 49 according to my driver’s license and the IRS.

This was a lot to keep track of. It made for some awkward moments on first dates.

Gray matters

It didn’t take long to realize that in Hollywood — where lying is considered “self-care” — what people really judged you on was your looks.

So then I considered my appearance. My hair was pretty gray. Should I try dyeing it?

I went to Ralphs and bought a box of Clairol Nice'n Easy hair dye. I went for espresso brown, which seemed closest to my original hair color.

I set up shop in my bathroom. I put on the gloves and followed the instructions on the box, mixing the chemicals and smearing them onto my head. It was a messy business.

The hair dye felt like it was burning my scalp. After I rinsed it out, my whole head glowed. Did it make me look younger? I guess it did. But it also made me look like a clown.

*******

I flew back to New York soon after, and a female friend immediately noticed the change. She said: “It’s true what they say; you look 10 years younger!”

That was nice to hear. But I was alarmed that she noticed it instantly. From 50 feet away.

Another friend didn’t believe me when I told her it was dyed. She had to look closer and touch it until she saw that I was telling the truth.

I was still trying to get used to it myself. Every time I saw my reflection, I startled myself. Who’s that guy with the dye job?

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Blake Nelson

Pro tips

Back in L.A., I spotted a sign in a hair salon near my apartment: “Dye and Haircut $80.” Maybe this was the solution: getting your hair dyed by a professional.

I would like to say this was a luxurious, pampering experience. It was not. The hairdresser roughed me up pretty good. And then I had to sit there for 40 minutes, in sight of people walking by the window, with a giant plastic covering over me and my thinning hair wrapped in tin foil.

And then, after all that, it looked no different from the Clairol dye job I had given myself for $9.99!

*******

Still, I stuck with it, re-dyeing it every six weeks — like it said on the box — for most of a year.

During this time, I kept a watchful eye out for other men with dyed hair. I was definitely not alone. At the beach, you would see aging “surfer dads” with dyed blonde hair and a skateboard under their arms. It wasn’t a terrible look. As long as you wore Vans and board shorts.

And of course, men who were on TV or acted in movies always dyed their hair. I’d see these men everywhere. Or I’d see guests on late-night talk shows who looked like they had just had it done an hour before. Their hair had that blurry, fresh-dye glow.

I became skilled at spotting dye jobs on either sex. I hadn’t realized how many women dyed their hair: basically all of them, after about 30.

The good news was that nobody thought less of a man for dyeing his hair. This was Los Angeles. Dyeing your hair meant you had a job.

All is vanity

This wasn’t the case on the East Coast. New York City was the land of the silver fox. Being a well-dressed, gray-haired, 50-year-old male was highly desirable. It meant you were rich!

In fact, it was in New York that a couple of female friends intervened and informed me that the hair-dye thing wasn’t working. I looked better being gray.

After that, my vanity took over, and when I returned to L.A., I shaved my head and released myself back into middle age.

Once I let myself go gray again, another Los Angeles acquaintance told me she thought I looked much better. She said the dye job made me look untrustworthy, like a used-car salesman.

*******

So that was a relief. But the real relief didn’t come until many years later, when I retired from writing and went back home to Portland and returned to total normalcy.

In retirement, I didn’t have to be young; I didn’t have to be cool. I could just be an old, gray-haired person like everybody else.

Though on Facebook — thanks to its birthday-changing restrictions — I remain a slightly younger and livelier version of myself.

Caregiving decisions begin in the bathroom



The holidays have a way of forcing conversations many families would rather postpone.

Every year, as adult children come home and aging parents gather around the table, familiar signs emerge. Someone struggles with stairs. Someone tires more easily. Someone forgets what was once routine. And with those observations come discussions caregivers know well.

The promise.

“I’ll never put Mom or Dad in a nursing home.”

It is often spoken years earlier, in healthier days, and always with sincerity. At the time, it feels like a declaration of love and loyalty. Assisted living seems distant, unnecessary, and meant for other families, not ours.

The problem is not the promise. The problem is that life keeps changing.

Circumstances change. Strength ebbs. What once worked may no longer work safely or wisely.

Over time, what began as devotion can quietly become more than one person can manage alone. Needs grow. Safety becomes a concern. Medical issues multiply. Caregivers often find themselves trying to do, by themselves, what normally requires trained professionals, proper equipment, and constant oversight.

At that point, the issue is no longer love or loyalty. It’s capacity.

That reality came into focus during a recent conversation with a friend. He had offered a small cottage on his property to help a friend relocate aging parents closer to family. The mother now uses a walker. The father has been her caregiver for years, but serious heart problems have begun to limit what he can safely do.

Still the conversation kept circling back to the same refrain: Neither would ever go into assisted living or a nursing home.

Their adult son is caught in the middle, trying desperately to make everyone happy. That is a fool’s task. In my work with fellow caregivers, I call this the caregiver FOG — fear, obligation, and guilt — because it blurs perspective, narrows options, and makes even familiar paths hard to see. No one wins.

It is like driving into actual fog. Visibility drops. Muscles tense. Judgment narrows. We try to peer miles ahead when we can barely see the hood of the car.

Every highway safety officer gives the same advice: Slow down, turn on the low beams, and stop trying to see five miles down the road.

Caregiving requires the same discipline.

My friend asked what I thought.

I suggested we lower the emotional temperature and start with one concrete issue.

Not the promise. Not the arguments. Not the guilt.

Start with the toilet.

Laugh if you like. It sounds abrupt. But it has a way of clarifying reality quickly.

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The bathroom is often ground zero for caregiving challenges. If the toilet is not safe and accessible, the demands on the caregiver escalate immediately. Transfers become harder. Fatigue compounds. Falls become more likely.

Once the toilet is addressed, you move outward.

The shower. The bedroom. Doorways, lighting, entrances.

Sometimes modest changes are enough — grab bars, a raised toilet seat, a walk-in shower. None of these are exotic ideas. But determining needs honestly requires facing the limits of strength, balance, and endurance as they exist today, not as we wish they were.

While politicians and toilets often deal with similar subject matter, toilets remain refreshingly honest. They simply reveal what actually works.

When families do this, reality follows. Cost. Time. Budgets weighed against needs. Timelines measured against declining strength. What once felt like a moral standoff becomes a practical evaluation.

Fear, obligation, and guilt begin to loosen their grip. In their place come planning, stewardship, and direction.

This matters because emotional decisions often rush families into choices that create larger — and sometimes far more expensive — problems later. We see this dynamic everywhere, including politics. While politicians and toilets often deal with similar subject matter, toilets remain refreshingly honest. They do not respond to intentions, promises, or speeches. They simply reveal what actually works.

Families do not choose assisted living or nursing homes in the abstract. Toilets always have a seat at the decision table.

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Surveys consistently show that most older Americans want to remain in their own homes as they age. That desire is sincere and understandable. But staying home without meaningful accommodations transfers an enormous burden onto the caregiver. The home may remain familiar, but the cost — physical, emotional, and relational — often rises exponentially.

Most promises are made sincerely. They are also made without a full understanding of how disease progresses, how bodies change, or how deeply caregiving reshapes everyone involved. Honoring a promise does not mean freezing it in time. It means continually asking how we can care well, given today’s realities.

Assisted living is not a surrender of care. In many cases, it is an extension of it. It allows families to return to being sons, daughters, and spouses, rather than exhausted amateur medical staff running on guilt and fumes.

We are not obligated to preserve every arrangement exactly as it once was. We are called to steward what has been entrusted to us — finances, time, energy, relationships, and the caregiver as well.

Circumstances change. Strength ebbs. What once worked may no longer work safely or wisely.

Important decisions are best made with clear heads, honest assessments, and wise counsel — not under the duress and resentment that so often accompany them. The days after the holidays are not a verdict. They are an invitation to slow down, think clearly, seek experienced guidance, and choose what is best not just for one individual but for the whole family.

The path forward is rarely determined by emotion, decades-old promises, or guilt.

More often, it is clarified by something far more unassuming — and far more truthful.

The appliance in the nearest bathroom.

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Why We Are on the Cusp of Curing Most Diseases & Living to 120 | Deepak Chopra
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Why We Are on the Cusp of Curing Most Diseases & Living to 120 | Deepak Chopra