[amazonify]0345490118:right[/amazonify] I cannot understand why some Americans are so afraid to be happy and healthy in their old age. As an avid reader, I am constantly reading self-help books. As an avid transhumanist, I am constantly reading books about living healthy and living long. As an avid seeker, I am constantly trying new ways of doing things, including reassessing and changing the things I put into my mouth each day and the exercise regimens I follow.

I realize that many people are brought up in belief systems that espouse that existence here on Earth is just a game God plays with us all. If you practice a belief system that runs along these lines, I respect you. However, I do not understand why it is so hard for some of you to respect me.

I am in Dallas this week (my job takes me around the country to various corporate offices). I was standing in the hallway waiting on an elevator to take me down to lunch today when I was accosted by a co-worker who asked me what I was reading. The mere title of the book Healthy at 100 was enough to cause her eyes to glaze over.

She looked at me as if I had told her the book was an instruction manual for gang raping her entire family while forcing her to watch. I could see an immediate flash of hostility and she quickly blurted out something to the effect of “Never mind, I don’t want to know anymore.”

Is it so wrong to want to be healthy at 100 years of age? Just because most people don’t achieve that I should give up on the idea and resign myself to a short life with a few miserable decades at the end? I can understand that people get set in their reality and resign themselves to whatever mystical set of rules they believe the universe will follow. It still makes me sad.

So few of us want to explore the boundaries of what it means to be human.

If you want to be Dead at 80, then by all means, don’t read books like Healthy at 100. But don’t judge me for wanting a more appealing outcome.

It is heartening to know I’m not alone in worrying about the impending disaster we face because the value of our money is MADE UP by bureaucrats. Sri Lankans are listening to Ron Paul.

“Few Americans give much thought to the Federal Reserve System or monetary policy in general,” Ron Paul wrote in his column this week.

“But even as they strive to earn a living, and hopefully save or invest for the future, Congress and the Federal Reserve Bank are working insidiously against them. Day by day, every dollar you have is being devalued.

“The greatest threat facing America today is not terrorism, or foreign economic competition, or illegal immigration.

“The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation.”

Ron Paul is one of the few politicians of the world who understands the intricacies of fiat money. He is on the House Committee on Financial Services.

Why this stuff is appearing in a Sri Lankan business rag and not here eludes me.

“So while Fed policies encourage younger people to over borrow because interest rates are so low, they also punish thrifty older people who saved for retirement.

“The financial press sometimes criticizes Federal Reserve policy, but the validity of the fiat system itself is never challenged.”

It isn’t rocket science - you can only make up so much value before even the dumbest of the dumb realize the entire system is just a pipe dream. And then the currency gets switched to something like bullets. If I have time in this life, I’m going to pursue an economics degree so I can hope to explain these basics more eloquently.

Our current money system is only as effective as the amount of faith the people who use the money have in it. When the faith tides ebb, the society leans towards collapse. That’s not to say our national financial house is going to collapse, but it certainly could. A house built on faith alone is not a house I would live in.

Someone explain to me how I’m wrong. Make sure you’re an economist and are ready to send me a copy of your advanced degree and the titles of some of your books. I want to believe we’re not headed for disaster.