Memento Mori

**Shu Zhang** (0:06)
Junto Club.

**Michael Petnati** (0:08)
Alright, welcome to Meeting 65 of the Junto Club. The Junto Club is a podcast that was created by Shu Zhang with me, Michael Petnati, and Matthew O'Brien as second and or third Mike to improve ourselves. It's inspired by Benjamin Franklin's Junto Club, which back in the 18th century would meet to discuss politics, philosophy, and events of the day in order for members to better understand themselves and the world around them. So we take that up and meet every three weeks to six months to discuss topics that interest us and to teach each other things. So on today's episode, the main topic was meant to be longevity. So that was what was agreed upon between the three of us off air. So and I will cover longevity. We've had two episodes that have touched on longevity in the past. Shu covered a book on longevity, which went through some of the tips and tricks that we can sort of talk about again, like the standard things you hear about sleeping better, having a more routine, keeping circadian rhythms, keeping patterns, keeping sort of a healthy lifestyle. And I covered what was probably an overly scientific and very dull episode on how basically, it was too technical, I acknowledge it. And basically, it discussed how your resilience decreases over time, and sort of based on just how immune responses to insults happen.
And so there was sort of a natural limit on lifespan, was basically the findings of the paper I covered. So those are for review. But often, so I don't know, when it comes to longevity, there is, you know, obviously more to say. And I, you know, I'll try to cover some on longevity here. But I also want to talk about legacy. And I feel like, so I feel like Matt and Shu, like Shu loves covering people's lives, and what, you know, we learn from them.
And he, like, whether he says the word legacy or not, he's very interested in people's legacies. And Matt likes philosophical questions. So I feel like that would be a good way to drive at least some conversation. So it's longevity and legacy.

**Shu Zhang** (2:49)
Okay. I thought you were saying longevity was, what did you say earlier?

**Michael Petnati** (2:54)
A lot of it is hippie-dippie bullshit right now. Yes, that's the hot take.

**Shu Zhang** (2:58)
Are you gonna debunk them?

**Michael Petnati** (3:00)
Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know if it's debunking. It's more just like, I feel like there's different levels of longevity. So I feel like we're diving right into the main topic. But I feel like there's longevity about, oh, this is how you have the life span you basically want to have, which is like, hey, you're healthy and live a good life till, I mean, depending on your genes, 80, 85, 90, and then you go off a cliff.
Basically, you're reasonably healthy, able to live a healthy life, able to do sort of your day-to-day things, and then your health plummets and you die.
Versus, if you don't lead a healthy life, you're, and we've talked about this in an earlier episode too, but there's a general trend down in your ability to function and your health. And so when you hit 50, 60, whatever the case may be, you start to suffer and you start to not live as well. And that's obviously what you want to avoid. And so some of longevity is targeted at that, basically. How do you avoid sort of that continual downward trend as opposed to sort of, I'm healthy, I'm healthy, I'm healthy.

**Shu Zhang** (4:14)
Yeah, and the health span.

**Michael Petnati** (4:16)
Yeah, the health span as opposed to lifespan, yeah.

**Shu Zhang** (4:19)
Sounds good, all right. Stay tuned then.

**Michael Petnati** (4:22)
Yeah, so some of it's targeted on that. Some of it's more like actually thinking about, don't die. Just go, man.

**Matthew O'Brien** (4:28)
Just, are we going to find out whether seed oils are killing us or not?

**Michael Petnati** (4:33)
I was not going to go deep with seed oils, but...

**Matthew O'Brien** (4:36)
Why are we even having this talk? Never mind, get this guy out of here. All right, we'll save that for another episode.

**Shu Zhang** (4:43)
Sounds good. I actually don't know what's seed oil is, so let's talk about it later. Excite me again.

**Matthew O'Brien** (4:48)
It's one of the new health crazes in terms of diet stuff, so...

**Shu Zhang** (4:52)
Really? Okay, sounds good...

**Michael Petnati** (4:54)
.episode, or on every episode, or most episodes, Shu likes to start with a quote. So, Shu, take it away.