We are constantly searching for a magic cure for the malady of old age. Haunted by the spectre of old age, millions are taking recourse to drug therapy, diet therapy, gene therapy, various physical exercises, stress management, hair colouring, hair implantation, and a hundred other ways to maintain their youthful appearance. Billions of dollars are being spent by the cosmetics industry in search of products and ways to hide at least the outward signs of aging.The vast dependence on plastic surgery in the United States to hide the signs of aging is the sharpest index of our anxiety.
According to Jere Daniel, the author of an article entitled 'Society Fears Aging' in the book An Aging Population, 'In just two decades, from the 1960s to the 1980s, the number of wrinkle-removing face-lifts rose from 60,000 to an estimated 2 million a year at an annual cost of $ 10 billion.'2 But all our efforts to stop the advance of old age by material and psychological means prove futile. Eventually the lifted face falls again, implanted hairs do not grow, stress becomes unmanageable, the body refuses to exercise, drug therapy fails, and cosmetic make-up cannot hide any more the signs of old age. At last old age finds us out and catches hold of us. We grudgingly accept the inevitable. We moan, cry, and curse our fate. We never stop to think that having a longer old age is not living longer. It is dying longer.
