2076-02-28 Morning Routine

The one-time cure was obviously the better choice.

ὁ ... ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ [The unexamined life is not worth living.]—Socrates

My morning routine today caused me to reflect on how much this small detail has changed over the last century. I am, frankly, in rude good health, and not just for a person of my age. I display none of the debilitating effects of dementia, arthritis, or heart disease. My skin is clear of age spots, as is my entire circulatory system clear of corresponding deposits. My hair remains profuse and mostly dark over much of my scalp, and my skin's tone and elasticity would have been taken for that of a person a third my age half a century ago.

There is a device on the wall of my shower enclosure that scans me automatically when I enter. I lean forward to breathe into an intake vent and place a finger into a slot for a moment. The device performs a series of observations and measurements and analyzes my breath and blood for an extensive list of chemicals. All the usual measurements are well within healthy norms for me, and there are no traces of any of the telltales for serious disease.

Since childhood, I used to take vitamin supplements. In middle age, I used to take numerous medications and preventatives daily. I haven't done either for many years. Therapies corrected my body's shortcomings in processing or producing all the necessary micronutrients and vitamins. Other therapies cured diseases or systemic malfunctions that previously required daily medication. Now, my daily medical examination is primarily to ensure that I continue to follow an optimal path for health and longevity. I could safely go weeks or even months without an exam, but why risk an undiagnosed illness when the preventative is nearly free and so little trouble? I feel great, and I want to keep it that way!

Most people alive today would regard my device as hopelessly old-fashioned. There are implants to perform all these functions and more, continuously and imperceptibly. I have avoided elective implants in general, mostly because I have seen so many fads, upgrade cycles, and unintended consequences. It's ironic, I suppose, that the inventor of so many innovations is cautious about internalizing new ones. "The shoemaker's children go barefoot."

Significantly, my diagnostic device is entirely self-contained. There is plenty of memory space for all the health information for my entire lifetime, many times over. The processing power of the diagnostic is likewise very large and fast, with no need for networked resources. Both the memory and processor technologies continued to improve and to drop in cost during the early 21st century. Today, memory and processors are so cheap as to be effectively free. In the unlikely event that I need to see a human doctor or to have a more extensive examination, I take my device's memory along for the appointment. I could, of course, send the data via a secured network connection, but I'm old-fashioned that way, too. Call me paranoid if you like, but I've seen enough hacked networks (and hacked more than a few, myself) to prefer sneakernet.

All this is the result of decades of work by some of the brightest human beings ever to live, working in a complex of systems of research and development spanning the globe. Unfortunately, much of their early work was under the control of a horrifyingly small group of multinational pharmaceutical corporations whose profit motive skewed human health care for generations. Of all my work, I am most proud of my contributions to making those corporations obsolete. They did not appreciate my efforts and made more than a few attempts to communicate their displeasure in the most prejudicial terms. I have outlived them quite a piece, to my great satisfaction.

One essential problem was that profits were most readily found in the long-term revenue stream of pills or other therapies that patients needed to consume daily to stay alive and well. There was far less profit perceived in one-time therapies that would actually cure the disease or remedy the condition. However, if the goal was to reduce human unhappiness, the one-time cure was obviously the better choice.

I chose to take an oblique approach to this problem, one building off my previous successes. It would not pass through either medical or pharmacy school.