What I'm making room for

Everyone is optimizing for longevity now. Biomarkers, protocols, supplements by the handful. I think they're right about prevention — most of what kills people can be seen coming, and measuring it is worth doing.

But I don't think that's the whole of it. If you want a long life and a good one, I believe you need three things.

Something from outside your own field. For me that's the piano. I gave it up to a life with no fixed address, and Leuven is the first address I've had in years.

Something physical that isn't training. Mine is a walk before the day starts, twenty minutes, to put my head back in order.

And the people you love, close enough to see. Mine are scattered from Turkmenistan to Europe to the US, so that one I can't simply have. You have to build a reason for everyone to be in the same place. That's part of why we're planting five hectares of desert.

None of it arrives on its own. It takes a certain privilege — time, money, access, a culture with room for it — and that has to be built on purpose rather than waited for. The company is the main block I'm laying, and I want all three at full size, not in the margins of a week.