The Race Against Death

Whenever I walk through my neighborhood in winter, I am blinded by the amber haze of the streetlights, deafened by the steady drone of delivery vehicles honking at agile cyclists, and suffocated by the stench of dog feces caked along the pavement. These sights and smells remind me that I live in Berlin, a postindustrial city mired in solipsism. As fall turns to winter, the sanguine spirits of Berliners fade into a gloomy tone that matches the gray overcast sky. The sharp, envious stare of a wily eye or a fellow pedestrian’s biting gaze can shake me to my core. 

One place that feels like a stark foil to everything else is a shop in my neighborhood—a cosmetic studio that promises to create or preserve a flawless, timeless face. The facility offers not only hair removal and hair loss treatments but also a full anti-aging menu, including skin tightening, actus lift (unclear what this is), radiofrequency microneedling (ouch), and more. As people in countries like Germany live longer, they notice their largest organ—the skin—begins to sag from its formerly taut muscles. And despite the somber mood on the streets, which suggests a disdain for life, there’s also a desire to preserve and enhance one’s own features.

Avoiding signs of maturity is as hard and costly as walking a tightrope fifty meters above the ground. But one of the most noticeable markers of aging is a desire to maintain one’s beauty, which Albert Camus describes as painful: “Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.”1 If we walk the line without discipline and balance, aging without adjustment can feel like falling to our doom. And so, people increasingly invest their precious reserves to knock off the appearance of senescence.

Aesthetes are warmly embraced by a multi-billion-dollar anti-aging industry that continues to grow rapidly, like a tsunami heading toward the Pacific coast, leaving previously tarnished faces looking pristine. Although the industry is quite broad, how much countries spend reflects the urge to forestall aging or attain a smooth, chiseled appearance. In 2021, the global skincare market was valued at $146.7 billion.2 The United States accounts for a significant portion of this, with an estimated expenditure of $47 billion.3 This is an incredible figure considering the US government spends $1.9 trillion on health programs and services. By 2031, researchers forecast that the anti-aging market will reach $273.3 billion. While market predictions can vary widely depending on how anti-aging is defined and what it includes, what remains inevitable is our imminent death.

The reasons behind people’s anti-aging purchases are complex. However, they are likely less about how we perceive ourselves as more refined with a youthful glow, and instead more about the lasting impression that youth leaves: that highly sought-after infatuation that has become widely accepted in modern society. In an age where individuals can craft a digital (and possibly viral) image of themselves casually relaxing on a rooftop in a European city—perhaps sophisticated or sociable—one’s body image is not only a reflection of how they or their immediate circle see themselves, but also subject to the judgment or disagreement of their viewers. Some protect themselves from the potential mental stress that comes with feeling we do not meet beauty standards. Yet, according to researchers, the psychological distress that is triggered by social media’s pressure to conform to beauty ideals and to please others—amplified by culture and gender—runs deep, even for those who consider themselves above such concerns.4 

There was a time when I judged people caught in the relentless cycle of body modification, those who refused to age gracefully, as feminist movements once celebrated. But then I realized I was also engaging in my own anti-aging efforts, spending my modest wages on skin-renewal creams and anti-wrinkle serums, hoping that any furrow would shrink or fade. Although I often boast to some friends about having a youthful face—an inheritance from my melanin-rich ancestors—I find that as I grow older, I am much more conceited than in my youth, and I can honestly say I don’t want to be subjected to the signs of facial aging that leave many women feeling invisible as they mature. There is a double standard of aging, an unbidden guest hovering like a pack of feral dogs. Susan Sontag once remarked: 

Most men experience getting older with regret, apprehension. But most women experience it even more painfully: with shame. Aging is a man’s destiny, something that must happen because he is a human being. For a woman, aging is not only her destiny … it is also her vulnerability.5  

Beyond this admission lies a stark reality: beauty is currency, especially in a world where housing, resources, and Labubus seem increasingly scarce. Anti-aging products are not just about looking more attractive; they are about avoiding our natural aging process, which has become a universal race against death.

Diet, exercise, genetics, and our environment often shape our lifespan and influence how youthful we appear. Yet, everywhere, people make efforts to slow aging, like heaps of health supplements supporting gut health or herbal teas claiming to boost immunity. Many of these products serve multiple purposes, such as vitamin D, which scientists suggest might extend life because it acts as an anti-inflammatory, helping preserve telomeres—the tiny caps at the ends of our DNA that prevent damage.6 Additionally, researchers at Baylor University and Emory University found that psilocybin, known as magic mushrooms, increased the lifespan of older mice, suggesting it could be a longevity aid.7 Among many anti-aging products, I was especially struck by those making dubious claims about age-defying fashion, and was deeply disturbed when one writer said, “I'm 53 and 5ft 4in. I tried on 60 pairs of High Street trousers - these are the 8 most flattering and anti-ageing from just £34.90.”8  

For decades, scientists have estimated a person’s age by observing the steady stain that darkens on their teeth, which builds up like dust in an underfunded museum. As we grow older, our teeth slowly become smaller and more transparent. To slow down or reverse the natural aging of oral structures, cosmetic dentists like Dr. Jassem Al Azzawi perform techniques to make teeth appear more “youthful.” His approach is similar to more common dental practices, such as using a night guard to prevent teeth grinding, and “dietary support and long-term monitoring to maintain oral and facial harmony.”9

People’s willingness to spend money to avoid aging and appear more glamorous or elegant often stems from psychological motives. According to the neuroscientist Laura Elin Pigott, dopamine—the pleasure-seeking hormone—might drive our wish not just to see someone young and attractive, but also to be youthful ourselves. Joan Didion noted in her 2011 memoir, Blue Nights, how she failed to account for her mortality, stating, “I have made no adjustment whatsoever to aging. In fact I had lived my entire life to date without seriously believing that I would age.”10 A raw and delicate reflection on the death of her daughter, Didion’s book also vividly evokes the mistaken ways people evade maturation in the US. 

I recently spoke with a British author who was puzzled by Americans’ obsession with facing old age and how that might hinder societal progress. Not only does this foster a shared false perception, but it could also lead people to hurt others. She suggested that if someone believes they’ll live forever, they have no incentive to reflect on their actions or to make amends with those they’ve hurt. Aging, in this sense, is not only about recognizing one’s impermanence, but also about grappling with one’s impact on the world and finding resolution with one’s community before fading away. 

Irrespective of how people feel about aging, there has been a surge in the number of elderly people. When we think about where and how they live, most people imagine either a nursing home with residents who are senile and just trying to win the weekly bingo game, a nasturtium-colored retirement community filled with octogenarians experiencing a sexual renaissance, or the elder who mumbles himself to sleep while watching the latest murder thriller.11 However, in reality, aging in the United States is more complex. Although there are 15,000 nursing homes in the US housing 1.3 million people, these facilities serve a wide range of individuals, including the disabled, chronically ill, or hospice patients.12 Nonetheless, our general lack of knowledge about these facilities is less about their often unremarkable buildings and more about how a growing number of Gen Xers and geriatric millennials refuse to admit that they are old or might even be close to dying. 

As our understanding of beauty becomes more diverse, fluid, and adaptable, ideas of youth and aging are clearly evolving—especially when there’s a conscious effort to forget what it means to be middle-aged. Few people want to refer to themselves as middle-aged because it implies that half of their life has passed. The average life expectancy in the US is 76.4 years,13 and in Germany, it’s 80.5 years,14 meaning middle age is technically around 38 and 40, respectively. This realization threw me into a crisis—seeing myself as being swept out of youth like a leaf in a hurricane, resigned to being middle-aged in both my birth country and my adopted country, and feeling devastated by the fact that I lacked wealth, property, or accolades. But it also made me recognize that my memories and experiences—my life—also contribute to my growth and maturity. Yet I still have difficulty not unwittingly buying into the American dream of immortality, which keeps my personal experience and youthful appearance separate from the usual signs of maturity.

Immortality has often been viewed as a spiritual reward in Western culture. It is usually considered a sign of wisdom by the big-bellied sage with a wispy tone, but more often as part of intergenerational folklore drawn from Biblical stories about mankind’s origins. Adam lived to 930 years, Methuselah reached 969, and Noah 950. Their long lives are stories that shape the Judeo-Christian tradition, symbolizing the blessed time when humans were given extended lives because of their piety. In a world where humans sin or face a fragile future, life is no longer seen as precious or gentle. Investing in beauty and anti-aging regimens can feel like one way to exercise control amid a perennial crisis.

Longevity labs in China aim to use existing antioxidants, such as grapeseed extract, as potent elixirs to extend lifespan. Lyu Qinghua, the chief technology officer of Lonvi Biosciences, a startup in Shenzhen focused on longevity research, claimed that “In a few years, [living to 150 years] will be the reality.”15 Researchers Guanghui Liu, Si Wang, and Jing Qu found that when they injected elderly macaques with genetically engineered human mesenchymal progenitor (stem) cells, called senescence-resistant cells, they not only halted aging but also reversed its clinical and functional negative effects, improving aspects like cognition, bone structure, and reproductive health.16 Although it remains uncertain whether this experiment would have the same results in humans, scientists are impressed by the findings. 

With a group of tech billionaires investing in biomedical technologies that claim to extend life—such as cryogenic aging capsules designed to target zombie cells—practical questions cannot be avoided about who will access the products, how much energy they require for maintenance, and whether they are effective at all. Beyond this, however, if such innovations became available and turned into a luxury only the wealthy could afford, what would it look like if many, if not most, of one’s loved ones were dead, disabled, or not lucid? Would life still be worth living? In this sense, it’s essential to consider that reducing the effects of aging doesn’t necessarily mean people are getting healthier, or that a person’s mental state remains in equilibrium.

For the past several years, I’ve shared an atelier with seven other creative feminists in Berlin who actively contemplate life and death, often because of the new roles we’ve assumed. In 2024, four of us, including myself, gave birth. Given the raw and painful aspects of childbirth, we have reflected on our own mortality. Parenting is unpredictable, challenging, and humorous, and our instinctive fears of near-death experiences during childbirth or postpartum injuries are supported by research, which shows that pregnancy accelerates aging.17 Knowing this may lessen the pure love we feel we need to show to survive childbirth and enjoy our child’s early tastes of pureed carrots. But it doesn’t change the reality that my efforts to prevent fine lines from appearing on my skin will be an endless struggle against the inevitable—what I and many others suppress, pretend won’t happen, and pour resources into society to deny: that we’re dying. 

On average, residents of Germany are living longer and more comfortable lives than they did a century ago. When Covid-19 hit the country in 2020, the government responded quickly, making hospital beds, medical treatment, and vaccines available for everyone. Considering the country's vast wealth—especially when compared to the poverty and military destruction in Sudan or Palestine—one might expect a strong sense of relief just for being safe and alive. Yet the pursuit of youthfulness, despite the lucrative business behind it, may never protect us from the widespread discontent that is so common in Western society. And so, as I walk through the dimness of winter and feel the sluggishness in my Berlin neighborhood, I continue to wonder whether people feel happier after an anti-aging facial, and whether that adolescent glow can really help them shake off their winter blues.