When friends meet, they ask of one another “How are you?” Can anything be more routine and mundane then that term of social greeting?

But when old friends of many years’ standing do meet, then the question assumes the significance of hidden existential meanings.

Old friends are hard to come by, naturally. Time, that eternal tyrant, is also a good judge of genuine friendship. In this world of fast, loose, and furious living in the city, people will look you up if they want something from you. If you have nothing much to offer, as is the case with a retiree like me, then fair-weather friends would evaporate faster than the morning dew on a hot September morning. One does not feel bitter about the fleeting nature of friendship; one accepts it as a human condition.

Recently a long lost friend invited me to dinner. I have known him for close to 30 years, from the time when we were working within the same political party. We had shared the same tight corners many times and fought many battles together. That says a lot about our abiding friendship. In any political party, you are more likely to acquire temporary allies and potential enemies than true friends.

This friend asked, “How are you?” This was no ordinary social greeting; for I knew he was really concerned about my deteriorating frame. So I gave him a brief report of the current status of my bodily functions. We compared notes on the condition of our respective liver. I whined about the high cost of buying so many drugs just to maintain a tolerable quality of life.

“When you complain so much about the prices of drugs, you know you are getting old’” I remarked.

“When you talk of nothing but your health, you are old,” my friend retorted.

Ill health and old age are common bed-fellows. Scientists tell us that in the distant remote past, our early ancestors seldom live beyond 45 years of age. By that time, they would have matured, survived, and reproduced. Then, there was nothing much to do except to die.

Nowadays, with better health care, our natural life has been prolonged to a degree that our ancestors could only dream of. The minus side of this longevity story is that ageing persons have to put up with all the physical inconveniences and discomfort of a body fast losing its many faculties to which they have been used.

Creaks and cracks

It seems like only yesterday when I was 30, having joined a political party partly out of youthful idealism and partly out of sheer ignorance. Like many stupid young men then and now, I abused my body in the name of working for a better future for my country and the enjoyment of a good life.

Then the creaks and the cracks creep in, year after year. The senses lose their sharpness. The body’s defence system against infection weakens. This is the time when the wear and tear of many decades of living begins to demand attention.

By the time when you reach your golden years, you are susceptible to many physical ailments. High blood pressure, diabetes, gout, arthritis, and asthma are some of the common afflictions that attack the aged. Why, even a good session on the toilet seat first thing in the morning has become a grand achievement.

These diseases seldom kill you outright, but they debilitate you slowly over time beyond measure. They make a simple physical exertion such as walking a mere mile at a brisk pace a Herculean task. They condemn you to a sedate and sedentary life. They demand a major adjustment in your lifestyle.

We are what we eat. The first adjustment is the change in diet and eating habit. The erratic indulgent and excessive dining habits in one’s youthful years have now been long discarded. Red fat animal meat is avoided like the plague. Fish, chicken (with skin removed), whole grain cereals, and a lot of vegetables and fruits in the right proportion are the best. A shrunken stomach does not encourage big meals, so it is preferable to eat many small meals throughout the day. A good breakfast every morning is a must. An hour or so before bedtime, food is not a good idea, or else the night’s sleep will be disturbed.

There is a myth going the round that older people do not need much sleep. I certainly still need to sleep every night for eight long hours, but perhaps it is true that sleep disorder is more rampant among the aged. A woman in my neighbourhood running a coffee shop complained to me just the other day that she has not had a good sleep in years!

Of course, doctors and care workers will extol to no end the virtue of physical exercise. There may still be the odd people beyond 60 who still train daily for the Marathon, but for the rest, a walk in the park indeed does wonders. Unfortunately in the Klang Valley, there are very few open green areas for senior residents to enjoy such a walk.

Not really sick, at least

One of my greatest regrets in life is never having learnt the Chinese martial art of Tai chi. The slow dance-like routine of movements is exactly what the creaky body needs for a wholesome session of exercise.

As an alternative, I do most of my house work and cook my own meals. You do stay engaged and busy that way, while the distraction frees you from the spectre of depression.

Meanwhile, though you pine and whine about your body getting increasingly brittle, you must congratulate yourself for not being sick in a big way. Friends and acquaintances much younger than you are now falling like ten pins, from cancer, heart attack, and from a stroke or two. One minute, they are fine; you meet them for a coffee, and soon afterwards, the news reaches you that they are gone.

Nothing reminds you of your mortality more vividly than the loss of a good friend or a close member of the immediate family. You look at their face in the casket, watching the familiar features from which all signs of life and personality have vanished. The body is there, but the person is no longer. You ask yourself, “Is this all there is to life? Will I look like that one day also?”

The family members of the departed will recount to you the last days of your friend’s epic struggle with life and death, how he persevered with the pain of his cancer without complaints, and how he had settled all his earthly business with fortitude, courage, and foresight.

From these and from your personal experience, you know that when illness strikes, it often comes with the suddenness of a mountain collapsing. To recover from it, the process may be as slow as untangling a silk thread from a jumbled web.

I know of some friends who are easily alarmed by the onset of any physical malaise. A severe headache may trigger fear of a brain tumour festering beneath the perfectly healthy head. An occasional tremor of pain in the posterior may signal the exploding of a hidden cancerous lump in the prostate glands. A twitch or two of shooting pain through the chest may just be the warning sign of a massive heart attack. Those who can afford it run quickly to the specialist centre for a thorough check up.

Meanwhile, the market is awash with a whole gamut of wonderful products to cater to the needs of your health care, with exotic components to strike the perfect balance between yin and yan in your body, promising you an ambience of friendly ions that would ward off the evil free radicals, and of course there are invariably those green substance made from some Japanese seaweed guaranteed to be a panacea for all earthly ills.

In the end, one has to conclude that the elixir of life does not exist. To grow old, to become sick, and to die, are but the stages of a natural process from which no entity in the universe of life can find escape.

Then, the thought strikes you that in the end, when you go to the grave, you cannot bring one single cent or a single loved one with you. You will part with all the things that you treasure most.

And while you are alive, trying to find peace and serenity in your heart, you know that one million ringgits cannot buy you good health. We may all be chasing the mighty ringgit and all kinds of elusive achievement in our life, but at the end, nothing is more precious than good health.

Do give it a thought next time someone ask you, “How are you?”