Get Busy Living
Bryan Johnson wants to reverse the aging process and live forever. But what is life?
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Bryan Johnson is a former entrepreneur who sold his tech startup Braintree Venmo in 2013 for approximately $800 million. Armed with all of that money, and perhaps a bunch of trauma, Johnson wants to live forever. Really, by his own description, he wants to avoid dying, which, I will argue, is not the same thing. This not dying is the message of the Netflix documentary Don’t Die, based on Johnson’s efforts to, well, not die. And his efforts are extensive, all-encompassing, and intense. It would take a piece longer than this one to describe the details of diet, sleep, supplements, exercise, and interventions that make up his days. We only get to most of them in the roughly 90 minute documentary, but these efforts basically consume all his waking (and sleeping) attention. All day, every day. He rises at 4:30 am and has his last meal of the day at 11:30 am so it can be fully digested by 8:30 pm when he goes to bed, his maximum sleep quality unburdened by digestion. That last meal consists of a whole bunch of vegetables, fruits, seeds, and other superfoods - as do all his meals. After his breakfast, he exercises extensively - cardio and weights. He ingests upwards of 100 supplements a day. Platelets from his 17 year-old son, the only family member, it seems, with whom he has a relationship, were transplanted into him. Every aspect of his health is measured virtually every day. He has, for example, the rectum of an 18 year old. Not sure how we know that, but there it is. Special lights, experimental genetic treatments that have to be done in some other country … you get the idea. It is reverse aging, not dying, 24-7-365.
Johnson views himself as on the cutting edge of prolonging human life. In the documentary and in interviews, he has compared himself to explorers of an earlier time - Magellan and Shackleford, going where no one else has gone. He repeats often the definition (not unique to himself, though he does not give attribution) of genius: “Talent hits the target no one else can reach. Genius hits the target no one else can see.” He does not suffer from an overabundance of modesty. Meanwhile he is documenting and packaging (and selling) his not dying diet and supplements into something he calls Blueprint.
As a species, we accept our inevitable decay, decline, and death. I want to argue that the opposite should be true. I walked into this because I was marching to an early grave. And now I’ve built an algorithm that takes better care of me than I can myself. I think this is the first time in the history of the human race that it is not known how long and how well I can live.
Bryan Johnson, Don’t Die
What does he mean by “algorithm”? It is a bit disorienting to hear him describe it until you come to realize that the algorithm consists of trying to understand what his physical body, his organs (his description) want - then devoting all of your living energies to fulfilling the wants or your organs. I know, organs may need something, but they don’t want things - but this is how he describes it.
It is probably over 100 different things I do on any given day that the body has asked for to be in its ideal state.
Bryan Johnson, Don’t Die
This algorithm, by Johnson’s own description, is in a struggle with the greatest source of self-destruction, our minds. Specifically, when our minds push back on this way of approaching life.
The conscious mind is desperate to hold on to power … We are in a fight for our lives, with ourselves … I have found more relief in demoting my mind and elevating my body than I have in my entire life … My entire life, I was desperate to be free of myself.
Bryan Johnson, Don’t Die
What Johnson seems to mean by demoting his mind is to ignore anything his mind might tell him about another way to live, other priorities, other loves. Of course, we can’t turn off our minds, his mind, his self, is what is telling him to follow this algorithm. Why I think that may be is perhaps the topic for another article, except to say that we all find ways to cope with trauma and we all try to find meaning - sometimes in ways that seem strange to others. This, I think, is Bryan Johnson’s way to cope and to find.
So, let’s say his algorithm is at least fairly effective, and Blueprint works well to prolong life. Let’s say that, by doing this every day, by listening to your organs and demoting your mind, you live to … I don’t know 150 or 200 or even 250. That is not dying for a long time. But in what sense is that living?
When asked, Johnson is agnostic, to put it generously, on the question. When reflecting on the meaning of this life, he seems to think there is no definitive answer, or, the answer is whatever we want it to be. He believes that if you asked a random person from 3,000 or 2,000 or 1,000 years ago about the meaning of life, they would have given a very different answer than we might now. To him, there is and can be no answer - but he can enable the discussion for longer if he can simply prolong existence. He calls existence the first priority of any question - because we must exist to engage it. This is what he wants the answer to be for the meaning of life for him. I admire Johnson’s honesty about these questions. He has thought about them and engages them … though I think he is fooling himself, at least a bit.
“Get busy living or get busy dying.....there ain't nothing inbetween”
Steven King - Different Seasons (Also in The Shawshank Redemption)
You may not be surprised to find that I don’t agree with Johnson on the meaning of life question. You can read any of my previous dispatches, selected at random, and probably find some aspect of my disagreement with him. We have Abraham and Moses and Deborah and Ruth and David and Solomon and Rahab and … well, Jesus engaging the question of why we are alive in ways we (or at least I) imperfectly share. We can be aided by Augustine and Plato and Shakespeare as they engage the question with answers that, while not the same, are in some harmony. Life is about something, we are here for a reason, or reasons - and we have known this as long as we have existed as humans - while we can’t always delineate them in algorithmic fashion, we know that they are there. Mere existence is too low a bar for us humans who have been created in the image of God.
I care far more how humanity lives than how long. Progress, for me, means increasing goodness and happiness of individual lives. For the species, as for each man, mere longevity seems to me a contemptible ideal.
C.S. Lewis, “Is Progress Possible?”, God in the Dock
Johnson’s son moved away from his mother and siblings to join him for his senior year in high school. He joined him in this Blueprint life. He had to, it being the price of admission to Johnson’s non-negotiable life. Their connection seems to grow during that year and there is genuine sadness at their parting when the younger Johnson heads off to college. Genuine sadness is probably something your organs don’t ask for. But there it is, sneaking up on your organs, life. This is why Don’t Die made me sad. The fleeting moments of connection, of life, of sadness, all existed within the confines of the algorithm.
Johnson’s complete dedication to, and his complete honesty about, what he seems to believe about what life is or should be about may challenge each of us. He knows what his algorithm is. We may find ourselves distracted by a different algorithm, unnamed or unnoticed. We may forget that we are eternal beings, made in the image of God, in the midst of a larger story not of our own making, bound to others in ways that bring joy and sadness, with purposes that extend beyond our years here, however limited or extended they may be.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Links
Don’t Die - Netflix - Documentary
How Not to Die in 2025 - Honestly Podcast - January 7, 2025
