Five Oldest Humans

Can you believe it? There are five people alive today who were born sometime in the 1800's. That means that today they are at least 115 years old. All of them are women and three of them are Americans. The oldest is 117 years old and lives in Japan. The fifth is Italian, proving that some people won't die for pizza.... or something like that.  But there seems to be no rhyme nor reason why those particular five made it to life during a third century.

In reading profiles of each I noticed that some have bad diets, some good, some had great stress in their lives and some not, some lived in poverty and others with no economic stress. Each has a disparate life style pattern from the others. There is no magic elixir that unites them. This leads me to suspect that, aside from accidental death, genetics rules more often than environment, and that we will probably live close to the ages of our closest ancestors,
 regardless of whether we have healthy lifestyles or not. I may eat some donuts to celebrate that conclusion!  My grandmother died at age 102 and her sister at 104.  (Some of the five oldest today also had a number of ancestors that lived into their 90's)

But how long is long enough? If you ask the ancient five, who have "relatively good health" today, none would say they are ready to die. They all have some activity or activities they look forward to each day and each has family support. One likes "wheelchair dancing" and another ice fishing. They all seem to not be bored with life, and that is amazing. I have always thought that one element of dying earlier than we should is that we, in our late years,  tend to become bored with life, uninterested because we have already experienced everything we can physically experience.

Perhaps future technology will give the elderly some virtual technology that is connected to the brain that will make the old believe and experience in their minds a new stage of youth. We might be able to "live" again, maybe even from childhood, as we experience a new virtual life just as we did the first time we were young. But is that living longer or are we merely becoming a computer that is only imagining life?  Is not life our every day experiences with real humans, and nothing else?

It's ironic that the debate we have now about whether a dying person should have the plug pulled and die naturally, might be replaced with a debate as to whether we should plug in to extend our lives, but only in the imaginary sense.