“Don’t Die.” {#TransparentTuesday}

I recently watched the Netflix documentary Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever, and uh… I have thoughts. 

If you haven’t seen it, the doc follows a guy named Bryan Johnson, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who sold his company for a bajillion dollars and is now spending that bajillion trying really, really hard to not die. 

Literally.

This man’s whole entire life is devoted to reversing aging, optimizing health, and utilizing every potential pathway (safe and proven, or not) to try to decrease cellular degeneration, age in reverse, and live as long as possible.

He does this, according to him, in the hopes of inspiring others to do the same, and eventually finding ways to “cure” humanity of death entirely.

To be clear, it’s not like this man is sick or anything. (At least not physically… I have a lot of guesses about what might be going on with his mental health though lol.) 

This is all coming from a place of preventing and reversing the process of aging, because—as he correctly (and unnecessarily) points out in the documentary—age-related diseases are the leading cause of death for

humans.

It has to be said that everything this man does is carried out to a worryingly rigid, obsessive, and extreme degree.

Even his approach to the more conventional “healthy habits” category of his plan (like optimizing his sleep, fitness, and nutrition) includes having every little detail neurotically measured, managed, tested, and determined for him by an algorithm, and he never, ever deviates from the plan. 

But to be completely honest, that part of his routine seems tame compared to how far he’s pushing into the “what the fuck” category of being a human guinea pig for interventions as far-flung and risky as gene editing therapy. 

We’re talking about some weird and disturbing shit in this category, by the way. He exchanged blood plasma with his teenage son (because…“young blood?”), underwent penile shock therapy (yes, that’s a thing), takes hundreds of supplement pills per day, and has a team of scientists monitoring his organs at all times… among other things.

I certainly don’t think it will be controversial to call these behaviors “disordered,” and I generally find it incredibly upsetting when people dress their disorders up as “health,” then turn them into platforms, either to “inspire” and “educate” others, or for personal gain.

And while there is no doubt in my mind that that’s exactly what’s going on here…I was riveted.

Because while it’s easy to mock Bryan (and the documentary kind of does), his story feels more unsettling and tragic than it does inspiring, or even dangerous. 

My experience was that of watching a desperately lonely person with an absolute fuck-ton of childhood trauma and shame, who has found a way to stay afloat. He admits to spending a lot of his life as a compulsive workaholic with constant thoughts of suicide who couldn’t get out of bed, so it’s easy to imagine his obsession with mastering death as a form of harm-reduction, or a preferable alternative.

After all, we all have our ways of coping with trauma, pain, fear, and existential dread, right? 

As a body image coach, I certainly understand how (and why) a person might become compulsively drawn to monitoring, managing, and controlling their body and health. Is Bryan really that different (other than the ungodly amount of money at his disposal) from so many of my clients, who are fixated on “optimizing” and “improving” their health or appearance through diet, exercise, skin care, or other treatments?

Based on over a decade of experience in this field, I could imagine that Bryan’s obsession might give him something he really needs, like a feeling of power and control over his existential demons, a way of coping with pain, relief from shame/anxiety, or a feeling of his life having structure, purpose, and meaning. 

All of that is to say that while his actual experiments might not be safe, responsible, or financially responsible, I can certainly understand why he might have developed this particular fixation. Why people in general become fixated on controlling the uncontrollable. Why people become obsessed with “hacking” their humanity in an effort to make it somehow less messy; less scary; less squishy; less vulnerable.

I understand the impulse, but I also know the cost.

For example, there are a lot of scenes where Bryan is doing something like eating a 1,111 calorie vegan meal out of a bowl: shirtless, alone, in silence, and in the dark (except for the red-light cap he’s wearing to reverse hair loss). Despite being alarmingly lean, you can tell that he’s holding his stomach in; his breaths are shallow, and he’s holding his body carefully, either in an effort to have “perfect posture,” to appear more attractive/acceptable for the camera, or because he simply doesn’t know how to fully relax into and inhabit the softness of his human body.

And all of that just feels so sad, because… is it actually worth living longer, if you never really lived? 

To each their own of course, but personally I would way rather be here more fully than be here for longer. 

I would rather enjoy butter, cream, and sourdough with gusto than eat to optimize my cellular regeneration. I would rather drink a cold beer with a friend on a hot day than measure and manage my electrolyte levels. I would rather let my belly expand when I breathe and eat than try to appear thinner. I would rather miss out on potential opportunities to “optimize” my health/body than spend time exchanging blood plasma with a teenager.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m all for taking care of your body, and there’s definitely merit to focusing on prevention when it comes to health, instead of just waiting for things to go wrong. And I’m not here to shame people for doing what feels good for them. 

But the goal matters. The why matters. And the whole premise of Bryan’s existence seems to be: If I try hard enough, I can avoid the thing I’m most afraid of. 

And yes, that does mean death. But it also means grief, uncertainty, helplessness. Meaninglessness. Vulnerability. Being “ordinary.” And maybe, if I’ve learned anything from this work, feeling unloved or unlovable.

And that’s what struck me most: this documentary isn’t about living forever. It’s about how we try to matter.

Bryan Johnson is trying to matter through longevity. Through mastery and dominance. Through measurable, quantifiable superiority. 

He’s trying to outrun the part of life that says: you don’t get to control when or how you die. You don’t get to control whether people remember you. You don’t get to control what happens to your body, or your relationships, or your legacy.

But you can take all the supplements and inject all the blood plasma you want, babe. At some point, your body will fail you. Because that’s what bodies do.

Watching this man try to “scientifically” conquer death felt like watching diet and wellness culture on steroids. It felt like the ultimate expression of the belief that if you figure out how to do everything “right,” you’ll be safe. 

(Spoiler alert: You won’t.)

And maybe that’s the point. Maybe the goal shouldn’t be to live forever. Maybe the goal should be to live now. With both joy and grief. With love, and pizza, and a little bit of chaos. Maybe the goal is to feel the unbearable vulnerability of being a meatbag with a ticking clock—and to love that meatbag anyway.

Don’t Die was a fascinating documentary, and Bryan Johnson is a fascinating human. But for me, it was a powerful reminder that I don’t want to be optimized, I want to be real.

I don’t want to not die. I want to be more alive. 

What do you think? Let me know!

Big hug,

Jessi

PS I have a few private coaching spots opening up soon, including a small coaching group on body image and aging, so apply for coaching here or just hit reply to learn more!