Just a drop of water and it never talks back to you. That's what I like about it. If you're taking pictures of people, they talk back.
Is my hair just right? Am I posed right? Which is my better side? Water never says anything. It keeps quiet and drops.
I was always interested in photography. I've probably taken pictures longer, taken more pictures than anybody in the whole world. After all, I'll be 102 and I started taking pictures at the age of 8. That makes 94 years of picture taking. That's a lot of pictures in a long time.
After a century, Irving Olson is still learning new tricks. He uses the latest technology. to capture nature's tiniest details, from the shape of a water drop to an insect's gaze. Nature needs me.
It can't operate without me. It would never get publicity. I love difficult pictures like this one here. And just as he's found a formula for his photographs, he's also developed a formula for living as long as he has.
It's a three-part formula. It's very simple. If you count to three, you can live to 100. First part of the formula, 50%.
You have to have the right spouse. If you have the right spouse, you're halfway there. 45%, everything in moderation. You don't sleep too much, don't eat too much. Do everything just exactly right.
Now, there's 5% less if you've been following me. That 5% is very difficult, but for me it's easy. Would you like to know what it is? I thought you'd never ask. Anyway, I'll tell you what it is.
You do not, under any circumstances, take any crap from anyone. At the University of Arizona and elsewhere, researchers are interested in Irving's formula and Irving himself. They're studying the oldest people among us to learn the secrets of successful aging. People who are able to maintain high levels of cognitive ability as they age throughout the course of their lifespan can be considered as having achieved successful aging.
It's really being able to maintain how you've functioned all your life as you age and not having major changes or declines in your cognitive ability as some people can experience. Looking at successful aging, we're really trying to understand why some people are able to do really well as they age and others not. Genes play an important role. But researchers are learning that other factors may matter just as much.
Staying active, eating well, and sleeping enough have all been associated with longer, healthier lives. What may matter most is something that's hard to measure, how we engage with the world. There are some good associational studies that have shown that being engaged, being socially connected, is beneficial to your cognitive health and your outcome over life. It goes hand in hand with your cognitive health, is to be emotionally engaged and happy.
and feeling fulfilled. And those kinds of aspects are just as important in terms of experiencing a good, successful quality of life as you age. It's projected that the elderly community will double over the next several decades. So this is going to become an increasingly important issue, that we understand what are the benefits and what are the causes of difficulties as we age, because there are going to be more and more people who are going to be experiencing these problems. So it's not only a problem for the individual or the family or the community, but it's also a huge public health issue.
Let's see. say thanks for redoing our webpage. Activist Marion Lupu has always believed that this public health issue demands public action.
Almost 50 years ago, she founded the organization that would become the Pima Council on Aging to give more people a chance to age successfully. When I started, our only service was one nursing home in the community. Most of the social agencies did not serve the elderly.
Since then, Marion has seen services grow and attitudes change. But she still recognizes societal obstacles to aging well. In some cultures, aging has...
a much more reverence than we do here. And I don't know that reverence for the elderly really is as important as just teaching people at a very early age that there will be disabilities and how they overcome them. If we could develop relationships with young people for them to recognize that they will grow old. And what do they want in the community to be there when they are old? And what is it that we need to put in the society that are supports?
Now 90 years old, Marion has her own definition of successful aging. To me, success is not wishing that you wouldn't be here. Tomorrow morning that you would just close your eyes and go away.
To me, successful aging is for the person to enjoy the latter stages of their life. And of course that means, from my perspective solely, is that you have to find what it is that gives you kicks. Irving Olson has no doubt about what gives him kicks, and no plans to stop searching for the next thing that makes his life worth living.
Now, since it's so hard to get around, I can't walk all day like I used to. Now it's simple. I just stand over my tray of water, drop water in, and I've got pictures.
That's my latest thing. Next year, I hope to have a new kind of hobby going. picked it yet, but I'll have something new.