Ken Dychtwald

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Ken Dychtwald

• Tomorrowday IV February 10, 1999
• The Age Wave

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Shangri-la or Gerassic Park?
Its never happened before -- the world suddenly
getting old. Right now, 2/3 of the people who
have ever been 65 or over are alive. More than
50,000 Americans are 100 years old. Medical
advances have raised Americans life expectancy
from 46 in 1900 to 75 today. And the trend is
just beginning. A mass of 46 million baby boomers
is just beginning to hit 50. In time, that bubble
will make ours and old, old, old, old
world. Psychologist, author, and entrepreneur Ken
Dychtwald is perhaps the 1 chronicler of this
powerful trend -- what he calls the Age Wave.
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The history of old

• How did we arrive at this point, the most
  extraordinary demographic shift in history --
  toward mass longevity?
• Its a stunning development. For 99,000 years of
  human history, the average life was 18 years
  long. And now this.
• How will we adapt, in our youth-oriented culture,
  to a new world in which buyers will be older?
• What will we do with 40 million retirees?
• Its not just a U.S. phenomenon -- every
  industrial nation is exploding with old people.

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The outer limits
How old can we get? Scientists talk about an
upper limit of 120-130 years. So an expected
average life expectancy of 90 years by the year
2050 will be quite an accomplishment. It is part
of a search for immortality that goes back as far
as the ancients, and includes efforts from
everyone from Ponce de Leon to Jonas Salk. The
next frontier may be cloning, Dychtwald said. Not
cloning whole people, but cloning our own parts
when we are healthy, and safely storing them away
for the day when we may need a new heart, liver,
or lung that our body wont reject, and no
stranger will have to die to provide.
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Forget Viagra
Science will also enable us to design new foods
and new medicines which maximize the kind of
life-essential microsubstances we pout into
ourselves. Forget Viagra, Dychtwald said. We may
make women just as happy by inventing a drug that
makes men like to dance.
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Stalking the elephant
The number of older people today will be a drop
in the bucket compared to the arrival, en masse,
of the boomers. These people were born during the
flush years following the Second World War, amid
a good economy and suburban growth. As their
babyhood caused the prosperity of diaper makers,
BandAid makers, and school builders, so will
their maturity be a boom for many businesses. But
most businesses show no sign of catching onto
this trend. Dychtwald says they are waiting for
the elephant to pass, and then shooting arrows at
it. Instead, they should waiting ahead, with a
fresh-dug pit.
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Stand back!
How big will the wave be? Imagine 40 million
grayhaired men slapping on testosterone patches,
and 40 million women undergoing menopause at the
same time. Oldness is a double-edged sword,
however, because no one wants to be old. Some of
us will be old and sick, others will be old and
vigorous. Some of this is luck, and some of it is
by choice. We can be Mick Jagger, still shaking
booty at 55, or Sophia Loren still ravishing at
65, or we can be broke, and broken down, and
depressed.
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What is right?
It will be a wave of contradictions. People will
be retiring early -- and then having nothing to
do for 50 years. Dychtwald is of the opinion that
it is not right for people to get old age
entitlements when they are not old. Otto Bismarck
set the age line at 65, back when the average
expectancy was 45. Is it right to retire at 65,
and taking money out of the system, when we are
still capable of being productive, and taking
care of ourselves?
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Signs of the change
Signs of the transformation are everywhere. Ten
years ago there were only 10 newspapers targeting
senior readers nationwide today, thanks in part
to Dychtwalds publishing efforts, that number
has grown to 700. Dychtwalds father typifies the
trend of older people learning to use computers
and the Internet. A born arguer, he painstakingly
learned how to type before charging off to Usenet
to get into some arguments. Its the coolest
thing Ive ever done, he said. Your parents
taught you how to read, Dychtwald said. We
should teach them how to do e-mail.
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Tithonius Revenge
Long life may not be all its cracked up to be --
not unless its long on terms we like. Dychtwald
told the myth of Tithonius, a Roman hero beloved
by Eos, goddess of the dawn. She loved him so
much she begged her fellow Olympians to grant him
eternal life. But she forgot to ask them to grant
him good health as well. Consequently, he lived
forever, but in continual torment, unable to
die. That is the same bargain we face today --
long life, but no guarantee that life will be
trouble-free.
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Old and green
Making big bucks off the age wave means being
ahead of the demographic elephant. Not behind it.
Someone is going to get rich selling delicious
healthy food, hearing aids, and easy-to-read,
easy-to-open products and packaging. At the same
time, old people will be smarter than ever about
taking care of themselves. Dychtwald cited Andy
Groves insightful battle against prostate
cancer. Instead of caving in to the suggestion of
surgery, Grove built his own therapeutic
database, and hired the worlds best doctors,
using that data, to get him well.
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The change within
Which is what we all must do to create a new
vision of aging and health. Life is not a brute
linear process of birth, adolescence, and
marriage, culminating in death. It is more like a
cycle of life activities, which we mix and match
through life -- taking time to learn, work,
recreate, and heads back into the cycle again,
many times over our lifetimes. Waiting to die can
be a very long wait.
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Get cracking
Dychtwald suggested we get busy now planning for
our later years. Dont count on social security.
Increase our savings rate, have a solid financial
plan to turn to. Expect to be caught between very
powerful emotional pulls -- for our own
retirement security, for the care of our parents,
and the education and future happiness of our
children. Above all keep busy -- 25 years of
nonproductivity is not what we were put on earth
to do, and it isnt good for the soul. The good
news -- the speed of life is only 24 hours a day.
We have lots of time to figure out our answers.
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