6 versus 153,000

Who the hell wants to be famous? Rich is one thing... I'd take the money, travel the globe, and run charitable foundations behind the scenes. But famous? Give up my private life and have every flaw analyzed by masses of ill-qualified sycophants and haters? Ummmm... no thanks. I'll let Britney Spears have her breakdown in public. She seems to enjoy it.

But the real problem with fame is it doesn't care what you want. Sometimes it comes calling whether you like it or not. I don't think this guy *liked* being stuck in an elevator for 41 hours, but I saw him on GMA the other day. And no doubt Jake Brown would rather not have fallen 40 feet off his skateboard. But he's an X-games legend because of it. Neither wanted to make history, but their follies brought them fame anyway, sort of like Elaine's dancing on Seinfeld.

So my exhaustive 137 posts (with over 153,000 words) about the New England Patriots didn't get me noticed at all. I love football, it's like full-speed, full-contact chess. And I love keeping tabs on the Patriots and the discussions the posts have sparked with my friends. But after all those game summaries, season previews, and playoff predictions, I reached my *zenith* of semi-fame for 6 words that have nothing to do with football.

"Changing mind postponed demise by decades." That was my submission to a Smith Magazine contest for a six-word memoir. It took me about 20 minutes to come up with it, and after I submitted it in December of 2006, I didn't think about it again.

Until February '07. That's when Rachel Fershleiser (one of the Smith Magazine Editors) approached me and 400 others about a book deal they'd gotten from Harper Perennial. They wanted permission to use my memoir, and they wanted me to create a visual image to accompany it in the book. I wrestled with the image for about a month and finally sent in my best effort. The book wasn't due out for a year, and there was no guarantee I'd be in it, so I sort of lost track of it.

Until December of that year, when I emailed Rachel and found out that I was indeed in the book. I thought that was pretty cool, and then I got more news. My memoir was one of only 40 or so that would include the user-created image *and* be on its own page. I can't really draw, so I was shocked that my scribbling was good enough. Maybe they didn't get enough other submissions or the ones they got sucked. But whatever the reason, I'd been singled out -- and was a tinsy-weensy bit more famous than before.

So in a year, I'd gone from 1 of 5,000 anonymous contest entries to 1 of 40 authors with his own page in a book. That's quite a climb up the fame ladder, and mind you, I didn't care one way or the other. Just doing my thing, and someone happened to notice. And guess what, it didn't quite end there.

As part of their campaign to publicize the book, Smith Magazine decided to profile several of the contributors. They asked for background on my memoir, hoping my story would be interesting enough to be part of their web-site blitz at book launch. Not only did they like it, they inserted an introductory paragraph and published the entire bloody email (complete with asides to the person I was emailing).

Now I *really* felt like a published author. Six words and a drawing in the book were okay, but 1,000 words for an online magazine with subscribers and advertisers seemed like a much bigger deal.

The publication of the book led to a bunch of other fun things. I'll chronicle those over the next few weeks. But there is one thing I learned from all this.

I've heard the whole "do what you love" theory, and I call it complete BS. You have to earn a living, and almost no one can earn one doing what we *really* want, sitting on a beach drinking mint juleps and making love with whomever we want. However, I think it's important to do your absolute best at whatever you decide to try. Because you never know which thing you do might lead to something fun or interesting.

I don't think I'd have gotten in the book if I didn't have a memoir that resonated and intriuged. And I wouldn't have gotten my own page if I blew off drawing an image (which was the toughest part of the whole project). And no way would Smith Magazine have published my email if I threw it together in 10 minutes.

So forget about "do what you love" -- it's a fairy tale told by those who already succeeded. But always do your best at whatever you care about. Your level of effort is one of the few things you can control, so don't blow *that*.

- Semi-famous Scott

Is *This* Why Women Live Longer?

Science just can't figure out why women live longer than men. As long as detailed records have been kept, across cultures and geography, through disasters natural and man-made, women have outlived men by a significant number of years. Currently, U.S. life expectancy is 80 years for a woman and 75 years for men, and scientists continue to argue over why. They've come up with a boatload of theories, and through the years, they were all shot down.

Early on, they assumed that men who died in wars brought down the average and that was the difference. But the gap didn't vaporize as women entered the armed services. Then scientists posited that the dangers of leaving home to go to work, or the dangerous working conditions themselves, caused it. But once again, women in the workforce didn't close the gap. Then it was women being more open to medical help. Then smoking. Then stress. Then genetics. And finally, more recently, it's supposedly the risky things men do to catch the eye of a potential mate ("Hey baby, watch *this* -- Arrrrrggggghhhhhh...")

A recent study that made the case in favor of the risky behavior idea actually revealed a significant a flaw in the argument. It stated that our declining overall mortality rate would tend to put more emphasis on risky behavior as a factor in the longevity gap. However, if that were true, the gap would be *growing* as risky behavior took out more and more men before their time. But the gap is actually shrinking, not growing, so behavioral differences are not the cause.

No doubt there are lots of stupid human tricks that put guys at risk. (I might have done one or two myself. Maybe even three or four... hundred.) But I think science is on the wrong track on this question. The answer has been sitting right under their noses for decades, and frankly, I'm surprised they missed it.

The answer is in the food. Or more specifically, in how *much* food is eaten by men and women.

Doctors have known for decades that semi-starvation diets can extend one's life. Might not be as much fun to live that way, but for at least 70 years, it has been a well-chronicled and analyzed fact. Some studies have shown that mice can live 40% longer on strict, starvation-level diets. And studies of humans showed many health benefits of eating a lot less (as little as 1,000 calories a day). And in fact, they are very close to understanding of how starvation unlocks longevity (link).

So how, you may ask, does this add up to longer lives for women than men? The answer is simple: many more women diet than men, and women diet more often than men during their lifetimes. A recent British study revealed that the average U.K. woman spends 31 years of her life on one diet or another, while the average British man diets only 28 years. The lifespan gap is 80 to 75, just as in the U.S., so there very well could be a connection.

And when you delve deeper into the situation, consider that women who diet multiple times in their lives would increase their lifespan by more each time they went on a new diet. Because as their bodies got used to fewer calories on one diet, they would have to lower their caloric intake even further to lose weight the next time. And that cycle only gets better (or worse, depending on your perspective) the more dieting they do. And 31 years is a heck of a lot of dieting.

(Note: I am not advocating starving yourself or going on and then off diets just to live longer. I'm simply stating my opinion that a longer life could be one of the effects of doing so. Always consult someone much smarter than me before undertaking a diet -- your doctor.)

I think my theory of the starvation effect explains the longevity gap a lot better than anything I've read. Maybe scientists just didn't think about the whole person when considering the difference. Maybe they just missed it in their rush to explain what they didn't understand. But whatever the reason, they missed it. And now that I pointed it out, they can study it and find out if it's close to the truth or just the latest theory to be disproven.

Oh, and what to do if you're a man who wants to close the longevity gap? Try closing your mouth for one meal a day. Might not be the way you want to go through life, but it could give you a few extra years.

- Scott