My body is slowing down as my brain speeds up. It is quite a dilemma. It is understandable that my body would be slowing down. After all, I am 81 years old. But why is my brain speeding up? That is not to be expected. Now, I feel like I felt when I was an eight-year-old, reading a book a day as I consumed a library. Then I only had two things to stimulate my mind: books and, most importantly, my imagination. I learned by creating and by doing. I was destined to find my own way because I was incapable of following anyone else’s.

Now, at this advanced age, I am still driven to learn and to create. Perhaps the advent of AI has set my brain once again on fire. But like my childhood when I was so ill that most of my days were spent in a bathrobe, my body cannot keep up with my brain.

I have begun to feel tired. Not sleepy tired, but weary. While I am still strong, doing pilates and gym training four days a week, walking miles every day, and doing push-ups and planks at home, the physical energy that sustained me over all these years is dissipating. I am beginning to be at war with myself. My body wants to lie on the sofa passively, but my mind demands that I stand up and go to my computer. I still put in about 10 hours a day of what others might think of as work, but it is the struggle to do this that I am expressing, as well as the concern about how this situation will evolve.

Perhaps there are things I can do to give me more strength. I know a great deal about longevity science and I pretty much do all the things that help maintain health-span, so I am a bit lost as to know what I can do in addition.

When I was a young man, I used to think that my body was just a socket for my brain. When I turned 40 and began to focus on staying physically fit, I was able to take a more integrated approach, balancing my body with my brain. Now I feel the schism is beginning once again.

There was a time when I loved to travel for business. Often I flew first class, and back then that meant being treated like a king, drinking champagne and eating caviar. Being taken in a limo to a beautiful 5-star hotel where everyone knew my name. Having important business meetings where I could make things happen that changed the world. I would fly from the USA to Germany every few months and stay just for a day. I would fly from San Francisco to Hong Kong for a board meeting every quarter. There I would check into a hotel just to wash up and change clothes, then go to the board meeting followed by a dinner, and finally head back to the airport to return to San Francisco. Now I resist even taking an hour flight. Thankfully, because of virtual meetings, the need to travel has been greatly reduced. But there are still occasions when they are needed and I am finding it hard to show up.

Perhaps my body and mind will find a compromise, particularly with the help of AI. For instance, I am creating agents. Soon I will have a whole team and hopefully also create an AI leader that can manage the other agents to achieve my objectives while I take a nap.