친구들;

나는 두어달 후면 만72살이 된다. 우리들 중에 결국 누가 제일 오래 살 것인가를 지난 여러해 동안에 궁금하게 생각해 왔었다. 四柱八字에서 85세는 살리라고 했었는데 나는 그것만을 믿고 살아 왔었다. 그리고 어머니가 89세까지 사셨고 아버지가 78세를 사셨으니 그 나이 정도는 내 차례가 아니겠나 했던 바다.

2년 전에 NewYork Times에 "Longevity Project"란 책을 소개하는 書評의 기사가 있길래 얼씨구 살펴봤더니, 내가 그동안에 뭘 잘못 알고 있었던 같이 보인다. 무슨 얘긴고 하니, 오래 사는 사람은 Conscientiousness(사람.행위가 성실하고 그리고 견실함)가 좋아야 한다는구먼. 다시 말해서 "매사에 주의 깊고 철저한 성격의 소유자들이 오래 살더라"는 통계가 나왔다는 얘기다.

운동도 좋고, 적게 먹고, 보약도 먹고, 낙천적이고, 열심히 뭔가를 하고..., 다~ 좋다는 거다. 문제는 얼마나 철저하게 자신을 돌보냐, 즉 일부러 의식해서 (conscientious해서) 무리하지 않는 생활을 영위하는 사람이 오래 살더라는 것이다. 80년에 걸쳐서 몇천명을 관찰했던 자료에서 하는 말이다.

내가 이 글을 읽으면서 내 처를 연상했다. 원래 약골이었는데 늙어가면서 얼마나 자신의 건강에 예민한지 지나칠 정도로 걱정하며 자신을 돌보고 있었다. 내 혼자 생각에, 이 사람이 아마도 90세는 넘어 살겠지 하던 참이었다. 이제 이 늙으막에 무슨 큰 병도 없고 어린아이의 홍안을 하고서는 남편을 잡아 죽이려고 설치는데... 자기 건강 만이 아니라 내 몸의 조시까지 맡으려 하니 골치가 아플 지경이다. 우수갯 소리고... 하여간에 건강에 각별히 신경을 쓰는 사람 만이 오래 산다는 실례를 내 집사람에게서 본다.

헌데, 우리들 중에는 남의 이메일은 귀찮아 읽지도 않고, 무슨 답장이란 것은 해본 적이 없는 친구들이 수두룩한 것을 나는 잘 안다. 이건 뭐를 말하는가? 세상일을 알고 싶어하지 않는다는 것, 다시 말해서 사는데에 흥미가 없어졌다는 얘기가 아니겠나? 책이란 것은 손에서 놓은지가 몇십년이고, 요즘의 전자시대에 이메일 조차 읽기를 싫어하는 부류의 사람들은 과연 얼마나 오래 살 것인가 말이다. 먹는 것은 좋아해서 배는 채웠어도 두뇌는 때가 끼고 좀이 쓸어서 건망증으로 고생을 하니, 비록 몸은 그렇다고 치더라도 사람을 알아보지 못한다면 그게 사람사는 것이 되겠냐? "알자이머"라든가, 치매라 하던가? 똥을 싸서 벽에 처바르고 욕지거리를 해대다가 죽어가는 병, 머리를 부지런히 써야 이런 마지막 증세가 없어질 모양인데... 이런 종말을 자네들은 아시는지 마는지.

어떤 친구가 내게 procrastinate란 단어를 써와서 내가 당황했었다. 나로서는 처음 대하는 영문의 단어였기 때문에 무슨 말인가를 사전을 펴서 알아보았다. "遷延(천연)하다. (일을) 미룰대로 미루다"라는 말이란다. 워낙 고급단어였던지, 아니면 나에게는 해당이 않됐었기 때문인지 생소한 것이었다. 하지만 이 친구한테는 그게 문제가 돼 왔던지, 아니면 유식해서 였던지 느닷없이 이런 용어로써 자신이 이메일을 첵크하거나 답장하는 것을 소홀히 했었다는 것이다.

내가 염려하는 바는, 해야할 일을 미루다 보면 그 문제가 마음에 남아서 머릿속이 복잡해질 것이다. 이로써 매사가 제대로 풀려나가지 않을 것은 당연지사가 되겠다. 많은 것들이 머리 속에서 밀려다니다가 보니 결국 정신이 멍해져서 생활에 활기를 잃게 된다는 얘기가 된다. 밖에 나다는 것도, 남과 약속해 놓은 것도, 인사를 차려야 하는 것도, 먹는 것 조차도, 몸 어디가 저리고 아퍼도, 술이나 홀짝이거나, 담배만 족쳐대거나, etc... 할일을 미루다가 보면 결국 제때에 병치례를 하지 못하게 되니 어찌 제 명을 다 살게 되겠는가? 한마디로 매사를 멍하니 게을러 하니 빨리 죽어야 한다는 얘기가 되겠다.

아~ 한가지 빠진게 있구먼... 꺼떡하면 욕지거리하는 친구들! 이 사람들 오래 살지 못하지요. "남에게 하는 말이 자신에게 돌아간다"는 말이 무얼 암시한다고 생각하시오? 남을 밉게 보는 그런 마음을 늘 품고 살면 세상 돌아가는 것이 모두가 비관적이고, 산다는 것 자체가 시들해져서 면역기관 조차 활발하지가 않아진다는 사실을 아십니까요? 여기 그런 분들이 많은데... 그런 사람들은 아예 오래 살겠다는 생각을 하지 마십시요. 좋지 않아요.

이 얘기가 정작 자신에게 해당된다는 생각이 들면, 정신을 바짝 차리고 생활태도를 바꿔야 할 것입네다. 우리들 중에서 결국 누가 가장 오래 살아서 승리자가 될 것인가? 더 자세한 것을 아래의 신문기사를 읽으시라. (일부 만을 추려서 여기 옮겼음)


禪涅槃
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Books on Science: Excerpt: ‘The Longevity Project’ (April 19, 2011)

Eighty Years Along, a Longevity Study Still Has Ground to Cover
By KATHERINE BOUTON
Published: April 18, 2011

In fact, “good table manners” is closest to the correct answer. Cheerfulness, optimism, extroversion and sociability may make life more enjoyable, but they won’t necessarily extend it, Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin found in a study that covered eight decades. The key traits are prudence and persistence. “The findings clearly revealed that the best childhood personality predictor of longevity was conscientiousness,” they write, “the qualities of a prudent, persistent, well-organized person, like a scientist-professor — somewhat obsessive and not at all carefree.”

“Howard, that sounds like you!” Dr. Friedman’s graduate students joked when they saw the statistical findings. On a recent visit to New York, Dr. Friedman and Dr. Martin did both seem statistically inclined to longevity. Conscientiousness abounded. They had persisted in a 20-year study — following up on documentation that had been collected over the previous 60 years by Lewis Terman and his successors — despite scoffing from students: Get a life!

In 1990, Dr. Friedman and Leslie Martin, his graduate student at the time, realized that an invaluable resource for studying well-being and longevity existed right in their own state of California. In 1921, Dr. Terman had chosen 1,528 bright San Francisco 11-year-olds for a long-term study of the social predictors of intellectual leadership. Dr. Terman interviewed the children, their families, their teachers. He studied their play habits, their parents’ marriages and their personalities: were they diligent, extroverted, cheerful? He and his team followed up with the participants every five or 10 years. Dr. Terman died in 1956, but colleagues continued the regular interviews with the original subjects, asking the same questions Dr. Terman had asked.
The secret to a long life has been much studied. The health economist James Smith, at the RAND Corporation, found that the answer was education. Stay in school. This is no doubt true. But his findings don’t necessarily conflict with Dr. Friedman and Dr. Martin’s: what keeps people in school is often conscientiousness.

How do you pose the same questions to participants over an 80-year period? Dr. Friedman deferred to Dr. Martin. One of Dr. Terman’s original questions to parents was “How likely are you to upbraid a workman?” Not very relevant in contemporary life. Employing a complicated linguistic measurement called factor analysis, Dr. Martin said, the researchers were able to come up with the 21st-century equivalent: “How do you deal with co-workers?”

Many assume biology is the critical factor in longevity. If your parents lived to be 85, you probably will, too. Not so, Dr. Friedman said. “Genes constitute about one-third of the factors leading to long life,” he said. “The other two-thirds have to do with lifestyles and chance.” As an example of chance, he cited veterans of World War II. “A disproportionate number of those sent overseas, especially to the Pacific, died at a greater rate after the war than the men who had been deployed at home,” he said. In any given year, men sent overseas were more than one and a half times as likely to die, compared with their peers who had stayed home.

There are three explanations for the dominant role of conscientiousness. The first and most obvious is that conscientious people are more likely to live healthy lifestyles, to not smoke or drink to excess, wear seat belts, follow doctors’ orders and take medication as prescribed. Second, conscientious people tend to find themselves not only in healthier situations but also in healthier relationships: happier marriages, better friendships, healthier work situations.
The third explanation for the link between conscientiousness and longevity is the most intriguing. “We thought it must be something biological,” Dr. Friedman said. “We ruled out every other factor.” He and other researchers found that some people are biologically predisposed to be not only more conscientiousness but also healthier. “Not only do they tend to avoid violent deaths and illnesses linked to smoking and drinking,” they write, “but conscientious individuals are less prone to a whole host of diseases, not just those caused by dangerous habits.” The precise physiological explanation is unknown but seems to have to do with levels of chemicals like serotonin in the brain.

As for optimism, it has its downside. “If you’re cheerful, very optimistic, especially in the face of illness and recovery, if you don’t consider the possibility that you might have setbacks, then those setbacks are harder to deal with,” Dr. Martin said. “If you’re one of those people who think everything’s fine — ‘no need to back up those computer files’ — the stress of failure, because you haven’t been more careful, is harmful. You almost set yourself up for more problems.”

How about exercise? Dr. Martin once ran the Marathon des Sables, a six-day race across the Moroccan desert, carrying her own food, bedding and clothing over 150 miles. But extreme exercise is not a predictable indicator of longevity (though the organization and persistence required to get there probably are). As important as exercise and lifestyle are to health, and thus to longevity, pushing yourself to extremes is not necessarily going to lengthen your life span, particularly if you don’t enjoy it.

Spend your time working at a job you like instead. “There’s a misconception about stress,” Dr. Friedman said. “People think everyone should take it easy.” Rather, he said, “a hard job that is also stressful can be associated with longevity. Challenges, even if stressful, are also a link.” In the end, he said, “if people were involved, working hard, succeeded, were responsible —no matter what field they were in — they were more likely to live longer.” Many people, of course, have to stay in a job they don’t like or don’t do well in. That’s bad stress, and they found those people were more likely to die young.

When it comes to marriage, there are many caveats. Marriage itself, adding together the husband’s and the wife’s happiness, was a good predictor of future health and longevity. But more interestingly, it was the man’s happiness that was the better predictor of health and well-being — for both the husband and the wife. Her own happiness mattered much less to her future well-being. Their mutual compatibility was also a strong factor in predicting their children’s longevity: the single strongest social predictor (as opposed to personality predictor) of early death was parental divorce during childhood.

I asked Dr. Friedman and Dr. Martin what the single strongest social predictor of long life was. Their unhesitating answer: a strong social network. Widows outlive widowers. (Widows also tended to outlive still-married women.) Women tend to have stronger social networks. Interestingly, neurotic widowers tended to outlive their less neurotic peers — they were more likely to take care of their health after their wives were gone.

One of my friends commented after hearing about the importance of conscientiousness, “No wonder women live longer than men.” That’s partly true, Dr. Friedman said, but a great deal of it also has to do with social networks, a social support system, which women are often more likely to have. “Among male/female differences, that’s a big piece,” he said.

The project is far from finished. Dr. Martin also wants to look into other variables affecting health, like sleep patterns. And she is interested in how their findings can begin to have an effect on public policy. Dr. Friedman said he thought the most important as-yet-unanswered question was about work — “retirement kinds of issues,” he said. “We know it’s not good to retire and go to the beach.” But it’s also not good to stay in a stressful boring job. “We need to think about negotiating these transitions in a healthy way,” he added.

“The Longevity Project” is written for the general reader, and it is full of self-assessment questionnaires, structured cleverly so the correct answers are not obvious. The subject matter of the questionnaires is illustrative of some of the other factors that are associated either positively or less positively with longevity: They include sociability (are you the life of the party?), emotional sociability, neuroticism, catastrophic thinking, life satisfaction, marital happiness, job passion and accomplishment, religiosity and social support network.

But the book is also amply footnoted with scholarly citations that others may want to follow up. It’s far more nuanced in its discussion than any short summary could be. When I asked Dr. Friedman how he could prevent people from oversimplifying his findings, he sighed. He said he tells them they have to read the book. I have oversimplified, of course, and I, too, would recommend you read the book. It’s a lot more complex than it sounds.