Commusings: The Deal of a Lifetime by Jeff Krasno

Dear Commune Community,

Perhaps you’ve heard of Bryan Johnson, the man-boy who spends 2 million dollars annually “optimizing” himself in the quest for immortality. The motto “Don’t die” is emblazoned across his form-fitting muscle t-shirts as he monitors everything from his sleep to his heart rate variability to the duration and rigidity of his erections. I’m unsure of what wearable provides the biometrics for the latter. 

I have interviewed other biohackers on the podcast who confidently claim that they will live to 160 and beyond. 

Of course, their pursuit is really one of a-mortality as, despite the body’s potential ability to regenerate its own organs, one could still die by being flattened by a wayward bus. It raises the question that if one were a-mortal, would one ever dare to go outside and risk the possibility of a freak fatal accident? 

I suppose we had a quasi-audition of that reality as we sheltered-in-place during COVID. How did that work out?

Why we go to such extraordinary lengths to avoid death is perplexing. We were all dead once and was it really that bad? Can life even exist in the absence of death? Isn’t there a unity to these opposites like night and day or right and left? Doesn’t nature pre-code us to die once it has harvested the best of our DNA? 

In any case, I’ll save these ontological quandaries for another musing because there is a more acute issue to address.

For all the talk about longevity and “a-mortality,” you might be surprised to know that, over the past decade, life expectancy has actually declined 2.8 years in the United States from 78.9 to 76.1. This trend began well before COVID-19 put its wicked foot on the gas. 

More problematic than the decrease in average solar orbits per capita (lifespan) is the average duration of our underlying “healthspan,” the period of life spent free from the chronic diseases and disabilities of aging. In the modern West, life expectancy has become concomitant with “sick expectancy.”

60% of Americans suffer from at least one chronic disease, the four most prevalent and deadly of which are cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and dementia. The average American spends the final 16 years of their existence limping through life, experiencing a reverse alchemy in which our golden years have been converted to the base metals of wheelchairs and bedpans. 

Our chronic disease epidemic has myriad knock-on impacts. None of them good. Obviously, there is the pain, decrepitude, immobility and cognitive decline that must be endured by the individual. This suffering then radiates out to friends and family members who must provide care, sometimes over decades, to infirm loved ones. 

Additionally, there is the staggering societal expense. America currently spends $4.5 trillion on “sick” care, approximately 18% of total GDP, primarily treating the symptoms of preventable chronic diseases with cocktails of pharmaceutical drugs. If the trajectory continues apace, domestic healthcare expenditures will increase to $10 trillion per year by 2040 and threaten to bankrupt the economy. 

Further, the distension of morbidity has eroded the value that was once attributed to accumulated experience. Older people were once heralded as fonts of wisdom. Legend, apocryphal though it may be, has it that the father of Taoism, Lao Tzu (translated as “the old master”), was born with his long white beard. Now, our elders have become the elderly. Once revered for their insight, the old are now too often considered a nuisance and cast off to a facility. Can you imagine Confucius being confined to a nursing home?

There is also an oft-neglected political dimension to the chronic disease epidemic. Inflammation in the individual body is spilling over into the body politic. Our divisive and sickly political invective is a direct reflection of a population that is increasingly unwell. 

The chronic diseases that plague society are not “bugs in the system.” They are, on the contrary, the natural and expected by-products of our paleolithic genome trying to cope with our modern lifestyle. 

Over the past century or so, culture has evolved primarily for ease and convenience, resulting in an over-abundance of highly processed calories, sedentariness, temperature-neutrality, indoor living, near-total reliance on digital devices, increased social isolation and a perpetual drip of cortisol-dysregulating blue light from our omnipresent screens. 

It is this culture of “chronic ease” that is leading directly to the scourge of chronic dis-ease. Our lifestyle has hijacked our biology, rendering our hard-wrought evolutionary advantages disadvantageous. In the 21st century, we are largely choosing the way we die – and not with an abundance of thoughtfulness. 

Personally, I don’t care to be Bryan Johnson (or boast the world’s hardest Johnson). I simply want to live a full and vibrant life … and, as Dr. Mark Hyman quips, die young at an old age.

The gospel – the good news – is that the body is “dying” to heal. This is why I am passionate about the courses we are developing at Commune. Our programs help you realign the way you live with the accumulated wisdom of your biology. Commune courses provide both the information and the protocols for eating better, for building mental resilience, for developing strength and flexibility, for generating energy … for being holistically well. Our programs are designed to extend your healthspan – to add life to your years. 

Commune is currently running a Lifetime Membership campaign where you can purchase all-access to our entire treasure trove of courses (including future courses), forever, for $359. There are myriad advantages to this unique offer. Now, I’m not suggesting that you punt your resolutions to February, but a lifetime membership does provide you with a lifetime to improve – little by little. If you do adopt the practices of our great teachers, then you will almost certainly live longer (and stronger). And, as my CFO points out, the greater your lifespan, the better the deal. 

If you are currently at the ripe age of 60 and you expire at 120, you would have spent a measly 49 cents per month – less than a single postage stamp (and who knows what postage stamps will cost in 60 years). 

My dream is that one day, a long time from now, at the age of 118, Schuyler and I will hike up to our mountain cabin to celebrate our 100th anniversary.  We will grill our favorite cedar-planked salmon, sip thimbles of Chateaux Margaux, drift off in each other’s arms … and die on the same day. And it’s OK.

The information and practices in our Commune courses will help me get there. I want to be 118 in that cabin. And I want you to be there, too. Well, preferably, in your own cabin ;-). 

I hope you join us for this offer of a lifetime. 

Here at [email protected] and waxing and waning on IG @jeffkrasno. 

In love, include me,
Jeff