The Gift of Aging: A Brief Poetic History through a Public Health Perspective

“The most well-known celebrities appear with faces lifted and smooth like porcelain from surgery and Botox.”

Kaiyros website with original article publication: https://www.kaiyros.org/the-gift-of-aging-a-brief-poetic-history-through-a-public-health-perspective/.

October 19, 2025

by Kavya Rajaputhra

TL;DR

• Modern culture constantly pressures people to erase signs of aging through skincare, surgery, and media ideals of youth.
• Historically, most humans died young — disease, childbirth, and war made long life rare.
• Advances in science and medicine have made aging a privilege once unimaginable in human history.
• Wrinkles and gray hair should be seen as symbols of survival, wisdom, and humanity’s progress — not flaws to hide.

Five minutes on YouTube, and I’m shown how to erase fine lines. Television ads loop endlessly, selling “anti-aging” miracles. The most well-known celebrities appear with faces lifted and smooth like porcelain from surgery and Botox. Across Instagram and Tiktok, every swipe promises a cure for aging: how to eliminate bags under eyes, tighten skin below the chin, lift a drooping face. A short dabble into skincare and all I hear is retinol, retinol, retinol.

Every waking moment, we are told — in a thousand different ways — how to erase our age.

But my years in global public health taught me a truth rarely spoken: the miracle of living long enough to age at all.

The sheer scale of premature death throughout human history is unthinkable.

Of the one hundred billion humans who have ever lived, most died before reaching adulthood.

Only five hundred years ago, well-lived adults rarely made it past their fifties. For thousands of years, one third of women died in childbirth. Millions died in war. Millions of children never saw adolescence due to disease.

Dying young was once the main human experience.

Now, through medicine, science, and the gift of humanity’s mind for innovation, curiosity, and compassion, we are allowed to grow old.

We are allowed to keep our parents and children longer, and not lose them prematurely to disease.

We are allowed to live beyond fifty — to live a full life.

We are allowed to share time with our grandparents, to have our parents meet our children, to become grandparents ourselves.

We are allowed to rest in peace, knowing our loved ones won’t be snatched away anytime they catch a cold or fever.

The reality of today is an unimaginable possibility for past humanity.

Growing old is a gift. Wrinkles, laugh lines, and crow’s feet are marks of life well lived. Sagging skin is a sign of cells that have worked tirelessly to keep you alive. The silvery sheen of grey hair is a symbol of wisdom — still revered in many cultures.

Aging is proof of humanity’s progress — the triumph of discovery, invention, and advances in medicine and health. Every one of us is affected by the work of scientists, doctors, and thinkers who made it possible for us to hold our grandchildren, grow old with our partners, enjoy lifelong friendships, and witness the world change for the better.

The Gift of Aging: A Brief Poetic History through a Public Health Perspective first appeared on Kaiyros.