So you want to live a long life…

This is the time we are meant to look back on the old year, raise our hopes for the new one, get some resolutions in place even if we already know they’ll be trashed by April.

The thing is, I’m really over the old year. I’m done contemplating the 12 months we’ve just undergone. And as far as the new year goes, so far it seems to be more of the same but worse. A terror attack on New Year’s Day in the heart of New Orleans seems like an extremely bad harbinger of what awaits us in the next 12. We’re sleepwalking, like heroin addicts who have not yet hit rock bottom; who are still clinging to the hope that we can continue doing what we are doing and it will all be okay.

To take my mind off the bad news and the worse news, I read the about Agnese Keleti, a Jewish winner of 10 Olympic medals who died at the age of 103, followed by the New York Times New Year’s guide to longevity. I wondered how we sit on the checklist they have proposed:

1. Move more. Check. We’re practicing our 50-meter sprint — once a night. Not only that, we get a Pavlovian starting signal that elevates our heart rate and gets our blood pumping before we’re even upright. Those sirens might be good for something after all. Thanks Houthis! (A caveat: Tripping on the way to the shelter does not necessarily add to your lifespan.)
2. Eat more fruits and vegetables. Check. Salad is still our national dish. And since the post-gouging price and tax rises went into effect on January 1, many of us will be dieting, even cutting back on the red meat and snacks. (Though carbs like bread will still remain the cheapest way to fill our stomachs.)
3. Get enough sleep. Nix. (See number 1)
4. Don’t smoke or drink too much. Let’s just say that if we do smoke or drink, now is not the time we’re going to stop. We’re not even going to resolve to stop this year.
5. Manage your chronic conditions (hypertension, diabetes, etc.). We’re managing, thank you very much. Managing our conditions? Our conditions are anxiety, PTSD, stomach aches, and headaches. Are we managing them? Don’t ask.
6. Prioritize your relationships. This war has helped us find our tribes: the pro-democracy, hostages-first tribe; the expansionist tribe; the cut-my-county-down-to size tribe, the my-country-right-or-wrong tribe. That’s not counting the tribes we already had, including the various G-d-will-save-us-forget-about-the-army cults and the minorities who have banded together to face down the other tribes. Many of us are finding more and more time to spend with our tribe, for example, the weekly sing-along social and talk in Hostages Square.
7. Cultivate a positive mindset. Are you kidding me?

Can I add one or two here?

8) Stay out of the paths of rockets, missiles, bombs, terrorists, and itchy drivers. Okay, an obvious one, but we spend much more time and emotional energy dealing with this one than the above seven.

9) Keep pressing for a deal to end the war. Especially for those living out of suitcases for the past 15 months or those staying home in border communities while rockets whizz overhead, this one action could significantly reduce our chronic conditions and improve our sleep. It will have the added effect of significantly increasing the longevity of a number of soldiers and hostages.

10) Prioritizing relationships takes on new meaning when we have family members who are kidnapped, serving across our borders or on a front, close friends who have died. Rather than asking how our circle of friends and family can support us, we end up asking how we can support them. (Not the same thing at all.) Going to demonstrations, preparing meals, visiting families: These keep us moving, help us sleep for at least part of the night, manage our chronic conditions and cultivate, if not a positive mindset, at least one that gets an occasional glimmer of a way forward.

If I’m to be honest, longevity seems to be an obsession of certain light-skinned, well-off-to-middle-class Americans. There is a certain fatalism to living in a war zone — even when I know that, war-and-all, statistically, I’m more likely to live to a ripe old age here than I would in parts of America. We’re less likely to think “I need to cut down on the cholesterol,” and more likely to think “If I’m hit by a rocket tomorrow, I hope I’m wearing my good underwear.” Death, in wartime, is something we look in the face each day, and when that face is the one of a young soldier dying alongside the 103-year-old gymnast, the idea that we can plan our lifespans becomes absurd.