And longevity seemed to run in their families. Most were "extremely optimistic," despite having endured "all kinds of calamities." Many were poor, but had a strong network of family and friends. No matter where he traveled, Friedman found some common threads among the people he interviewed. There is not that much respect for the elders." "In the modern West, everything is about the new, the culture of youth. The people have a place in society," he said. "In general, in the old eastern cultures, age is a mark of respect, experience. Surya Das, who lived in the Himalayas for 20 years, agrees with Friedman that elders in the United States are largely an untapped resource. One of the first people to whom Friedman showed his photographs was Lama Surya Das, a Buddhist teacher who founded the Cambridge-based Dzogchen Meditation Centers. "Once they reach a certain age, they are venerated for being cultural treasures." "There is a basic reverence for their knowledge," he said. Ten of his subjects were from Japan, which Friedman describes as the "gold standard" for how a country treats its elders. It was her will against mine and she dictated the terms."įrom there, his search took him across the United States to New York, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska and South Dakota, and overseas to Italy, Portugal, Spain and Morocco. "At 112, time was of no importance to her. "She was testing me," he writes in his book. Smith made him wait an hour while she finished her dessert. "So if there is no paperwork, there is really no way to prove a person's age."įriedman started his project in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, where he interviewed 112-year-old Ann Smith at a retirement home. "Believe it or not, scientists have not found a way to accurately determine the age of a human body," he said. To separate actual supercentenarians from those who are either mistaken or lying about their age for attention or personal gain, Young and other researchers search for birth and baptismal certificates, marriage licenses and census records. Young said there are an estimated 300 to 450 living supercentenarians worldwide, with around 60 in the United States. 31, the group's database listed the names, ages and hometowns of 65 women and nine men who are at least 110 years old, but that's only the number the group's researchers have been able to validate. He found one in Robert Young, an Atlanta-based investigator for the Gerontology Research Group, which keeps a global database of supercentenarians.Īs of Oct. You just have to listen."īefore he could embark on his globe-trotting search, Friedman needed a "compass" to find the world's oldest people. "They are just sitting there, waiting to give us this extraordinary information. And the good? "They are people we can learn from," he said.
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