How to Live Longer and Stay Sharper: Be Creative. Find Your Joy.

I have a theory--with no facts to back me up--but I love that I thought of this.

This is me being silly in my office when I should be writing. It says so right there.

I went to breakfast with my grandson¹ this week (Bob Evans—best banana bread in the world!), and he asked me again how old I was. “Eighty-seven”, I told him, and he said, “That’s what I thought but I was doubting myself. It seems so impossible.”

He went on to marvel at how sharp he thinks I still am (for my age), and how I seem to be growing better instead of beginning to fail—at least brain-wise. (He knows all too well that my body can’t forget how old I am. It feels the need to keep up with the trend—all downhill from here on out.) He’s glad I’m happy and fulfilled and working.

I ate it up, of course, thankful that I don’t blush anymore.

As we talked about it—about how some people get old long before their time while others seem to have forgotten they’re old and just go on as if it’s not really a thing—I saw for the first time a clear path to why some of us might just be defying the inevitable age thing, even into our eighties and nineties.

I brought up how many over-80-year-olds there are on Substack, still writing, still being their remarkable selves, and I realized in that moment that it might well be creativity that’s keeping us younger than our years.

Yes, just being creative. It could be as simple as that.

I mean, think about it—our creative brains are in constant motion. We’re thinking, analyzing, imagining, planning, plotting—and then we spend minutes or weeks or ages putting it all together, getting it just right. Some of us have been doing it for years, for decades, for well over the half-century mark. We barely give our brains a rest—everything we see and do is fodder for material, and our brains can’t help but thrive on all of that nourishment.

It’s not true of every creative person, of course. Some of the best died way too young, in their prime, with such promise. If only they could have lived. If only our enjoyment of them had been enough to keep them going. RIP, you incredible sparks of everlasting light.

And some age as they lived—with no joy at all.

Then there are the rest of us. We may never be famous, but our stories parallel theirs. We have talent, we keep going, we’re happy doing it, it’s fulfilling, and whatever we’re doing may well be keeping us alive and sparkling longer than we could ever have hoped for.

Who are we? If I gave you names you might not know us and you probably wouldn’t keep reading this, so I’ve made a quick list of famous creatives who have gone on long past the time any of us thought they would.

It’s not that they’re more creative than anyone else—though some of them surely are—it’s that they’ve hit the jackpot when it comes to happily keeping going while growing more and more ancient.

When death finally does come for them, it will hardly slow them down. They’ll have become treasures of the ages. They’ll have lived so long they’ve leaped across generations. Everybody knows their name. Their life histories, given the times through which they’ve lived—before TV, before cell phones, before computers and the internet—must seem quaint and mythical. They’ve become historical characters, yet they keep going, year after year, against all odds, those people who lived way back when.

So here’s what I’ve come up with to prove the aged creatives are not myths, nor are they anomalies. This is but a short list of some of the magnificent creatives still going while over 80, in no particular order. (I’ve included some who have died recently but were still creative into old age and deserve to be noted)

Tell me who I’ve missed, including any lesser knowns. Let’s celebrate them all! (Links are to pieces I’ve written about them.)

Jane Fonda, 87

Joe Biden, 82

Dick Van Dyke, 99

Gloria Steinem, 90

Keith Richards, 80

Joyce Carol Oates, 86

Bob Dylan, 83

Tony Bennett, 96 (Died, 2023)

Margaret Atwood, 85

Mel Brooks, 98

Barbra Streisand, 82

Jimmy Carter, 100

Dan Rather, 93

Lily Tomlin, 85

David Attenborough, 98

Abigail Thomas, 83

Paul Simon, 83

Elaine May, 93

Toni Morrison, 88 (Died, 2019)

Kris Kristofferson, 88 (Died 9/28/2024)

Norman Lear, 101 (Died, 2023)

Martha Stewart, 83

Willie Nelson, 91

Rita Moreno, 92

Joni Mitchell, 81

Frankie Valli, 90

Herman Wouk, 103 (Died, 2019)

Betty White, 99 (Died, 2021)

Maggie Smith, 89 (Died 9/27/ 2024)

Paul McCartney, 82

Nikki Giovanni, 81 (Died 12/9/2024)

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1. A plug for my grandson: He owns Hexagon Records, the only full-scale record store in Petoskey Michigan. He opened the doors six months ago and is already a fixture, with rave reviews about what a great guy he is and how knowledgeable he is about vinyls. I’m button-busting proud of him! Be sure to visit if you’re anywhere nearby.