Hanneke Van Ryswyk, The Longing, 2022
Yesterday my friend and I were chatting about nutrition or some such, and they mentioned a trending tech magnate spending millions to reverse aging. I assumed he’d be another desiccated computer man pickling his brain, but Bryan Johnson is pursuing a different angle.
As you see in the above photo pairing, the news media aims to chart Bryan’s metamorphosis from conventionally bland CEO to freak. I love nothing better than the birth of a freak. In fact, the more interviews I read and videos I watch, the more I’m reminded of the artists Orlan and Matthew Barney.
Orlan is best known for undergoing plastic surgery to look like art historical subjects. Matthew Barney directed The Cremaster Cycle, “a self-enclosed aesthetic system consisting of five feature-length films that explore processes of creation,” using the male cremaster muscle as the conceptual point of departure.
Bryan Johnson’s error is simply misattributing his project as science. As exploration of obsessional neurosis, commentary on futuristic fantasies and biohacking gone wild, as body art, data art—it’s impeccable. There are sections of his YouTube videos, like a long disquisition on hair dye and the future of humanity, that rival experimental luminaries like George Kuchar or Miranda July in their weirdness.
Bryan can’t be in the sun due to anti-aging laser treatments, hence his ghastly pale complexion. We’ve seen so many movies with sad robots and pale androids, it’s hard not to project the sadness onto his paleness—but in fact, the noble origin of his Blueprint project was an effort to overcome chronic depression. While we may not perceive his happiness through the blank expression and stiff posture, he asserts that he is in fact happy.
Outlandish1 aspects of his routine include: blood transfusions; full body laser treatments; a team of 30 doctors monitoring his stats; a hundred supplements a day, human growth hormone, non-feminizing estrogen, metformin, a machine for strengthening the pelvic floor, a machine for reversing hearing loss, a machine for stimulating the vagus nerve, a bunch of other machines.
Attainable aspects include: vegan meals, five cups of green tea, an hour of exercise, half an hour of meditation, a tea tree oil oral rinse, a standing desk, two hours off screens (or with blue-light glasses) before bed, and eight hours of sleep in a room with blackout shades. I noticed many of the exercises he does are mobility protocols designed by trainers Ben Patrick (‘knees-over-toes guy’)2 and Kelly Starrett (Becoming a Supple Leopard). I started these protocols after tearing the meniscus in my left knee when I didn’t have health insurance—they work. And unless you’re an elite athlete, you don’t need equipment to do them.
This is all pretty mundane, although it’s the kind of mundane I strive for on my best days, the astonishing compound effect of many good health habits. What’s decidedly not mundane are the philosophical underpinnings of his project.
“The whole system is rigged against us,” he says, “we’ve built a society based on addiction.” He rather unexpectedly references capitalism and social custom as culprits, and boils his program down to two essential elements: eliminate self-destructive behaviors (i.e. drinking, smoking, eating junk food, overuse of screens) and sleep properly. “A good night’s sleep, everything feels possible and fine; a bad night’s sleep, everything feels miserable and discouraging.” He derides grind culture and his past lifestyle as an overworked entrepreneur. During that era of his life, he was reliably unable to act in his best interests, decided to remove his mind as a problem-solving tool, and “let my body solve its own problems of how to be in an ideal state.” With the help of his team of doctors, this would be built into “a system that would take care of me.” The system performs the function of a deity, family, or community.
In interview after interview he patiently endures questions about the details of his smoothie, then tries to explain that Blueprint “isn’t a quest for immortality or a vanity project.” He wants to provide a data set and program that anyone can use to improve physical and mental health, with the ultimate goal of…achieving world peace. This started with asking, “how could I achieve world peace inside of me,” and extends to inquiring, “could we imagine ourselves becoming a completely non-violent species?”
We all love the question of what we might do with 800 million dollars; would we choose something more or less grandiose than reversing our own aging for the good of humanity? Would we hunker down in our ultra-minimalist L.A. mansions with forest wallpaper and equip a team to surveil our internal organs?
There are probably better ways to advance science, like funding the research of anti-aging biologists. But, I suppose I expected to feel sadistic jouissance hating another soulless rich person, and was surprised to find I like him. He’s gracious and good-humored in interactions with fans and trolls alike. He’s kind to his staff and attentive to his son. There’s a whiff of tentative experimentation with gender and sexual identity. It’s disingenuous to portray one’s personal health regimen as a significant contribution to world peace, but he’s fully immersed in a cyborgian delusion. He’s an unwitting performance artist grappling with how to make meaning, the real precursor to health, in the face of the sterile and isolated milieu of the super-rich. Perhaps he should watch Todd Haynes’ Safe and read Dodie Bellamy’s “When the Sick Rule the World.”
Not what I intended to write about today, but my own ill-health has made me a sucker for comeback stories. And I’m always a sucker for eccentricity.
Here’s a class about making a class if you don’t like assuming mastery but don’t want to be a flunky: https://www.marleegrace.space/classes
Here’s a class about marketing if you don’t like marketing but don’t want to be a flunky: https://www.bearcoaches.com/m4w
If, like me, you’re a flunky and feeling rather tatty besides:
I’ve listened to this every day since I found it. If you have complex trauma or an adjacent diagnosis, or compounding problems you’re avoiding:
If the dysregulation of your nervous system has progressed to debilitating physical exhaustion (CFS/ME, post-viral fatigue, long covid, adrenal insufficiency):
˚ · . instagram
˚ · . ko-fi
˚ · . bookshop
˚ · . thelaboringheart@gmail.com
Outlandish for ordinary people; it sounds de rigueur for A-list celebrities.
The morning after writing this, Bryan posted a photo ‘hanging out’ with Ben Patrick at his compound! Called it.