The best way to age? Forget the longevity bros – and be more Mariah Carey
Carey is famous for cancelling stuff – stairs (won't do them), J-Lo (doesn't know her), James Corden's Carpool Karaoke (refused to sing) and overhead lighting (no) – but this might be her finest work yet. She has had time in her sights for a while, telling Out magazine: 'I don't count years, but I definitely rebuke them,' in 2014 and claiming on Capital FM that she doesn't have a birthday.
She is hardly the first diva to deny ageing, but I don't think anyone else has had the audacity to axe seconds, minutes and hours. While it might prove challenging for students of physics, I love this for her – and for us.
We are making heavy weather of ageing. Everywhere I look, I'm assailed with questions and commandments about how to 'age well': build muscle, quit booze, sleep longer, eat ferments, stand up, walk fast, squat deep, jump around (the longevity benefits of the hokey cokey are unconfirmed).
I know that goes for everyone – our society is solipsistic and obsessed with wellness – but it seems to apply doubly when you hit midlife, presumably because the older worried-well, feeling the chilly whisper of mortality, are a great demographic to target.
HTSI, the expensive fripperies section of the Financial Times, recently launched a 'longevity project' (hardly necessary for its readership, given that being rich already adds nine years on to your life). I took its quiz to assess how well I'm ageing (which is surely the most depressing summer magazine quiz ever: 'Mostly D? You're staggering to an early grave') and it suggested I cut out takeaways and eat more slowly, targeting my only remaining pleasures: tearing through food like a famished raccoon and not cooking.
I thought I was fine with ageing, but, eight months after turning 50, the facts suggest otherwise. My breakfasts look like sweepings from the bottom of a hamster cage; I take multiple supplements, I worry about my bone density and blood pressure and I try to 'lift heavy'. Sometimes, as my husband and I pass each other the vitamin D spray (may slow biological ageing) in the morning before brushing our teeth, eyes closed, balanced on one leg, (doing it for longer predicts survival), I remember wistfully the gin-sodden nights and croissant breakfasts in bed of our youth. I don't truly believe I can delay decrepitude, but I seem to have become a low-budget version of the immortality bro Bryan Johnson anyway. Deluged with anxiety-inducing messaging, I'm spending my finite days planking, pulse-soaking and fretting rather than living.
I'm doing it because I'm a craven rule-follower; plenty of people manage to ignore this noise and live outward-looking, exciting, second acts. But it's also because the other options – getting weak or sick, burdening my kids and, yes, death – are worse.
But here, finally, is my philosopher queen with a third way. I can't possibly tell you how old Carey is, but having been born in 1969 to my 1974, she looks like a superior species: glossier, happier, thriving. It's possible, I suppose, that 'not acknowledging time' involves a punishing diet and exercise regime, but I don't believe it. Carey isn't sprinkling ground hemp seeds on her unsweetened porridge and taking her statins before going to power pump basics – she is too fabulous for that (and probably asleep: she cancelled mornings, too). She is also still having fun, as the Bazaar interview surely proves.
You wouldn't want to overuse the question: 'What would Mariah do?' It could get lesser mortals arrested. But I think, now and then, as I'm dully dithering over cholesterol in coconut yoghurt or whether I need more cardio, I may whisper it to myself.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
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