My Great Grandmother

My Great Grandmother lived to be well over 100 years old. I think 109 or 112. I forget which one. I met her in 1988 when I was dumb middle schooler and didn't have the brains to ask her her secret of living long. I'm sure if I pressed my Mom (her grandmother) she'd tell me. But I think it has something to be boosting our immunity to the natural world.
My Mom's family were farmers. I mean...serious farmers. They toiled and shat in the fields. The entire family lived in (literally a shack). The clay tiles on the roof were cracking, and floors were dirt. I recall meeting Great Grams there. At that point, I'm not entirely sure she knew who I was. An American just dropping by? It was as rural as rural can get. They shat in holes dug in the ground. No joke.

So, with this type of living, how did they live this long? Immunity. I think simply put, we rely way too much on comfortability (I'm, guilty). The weather needs to be "conditioned" to the proper temperature. Or food has to be infinitely non-gluten or whatever fad is out there. While, it may be true bat soup or whatever caused this outbreak. And we consider the Chinese savages (which I do). They still have lived 1000 of years of civilization pre-America. At our arrogant close to 400 years we have had medical discoveries that have made people survive. Though, the quality of life is what we focus on and not necessarily on just surviving. Why bother if I were to tell you that to live to 100 it would require you not drink booze for ten of those years. You wouldn't want to live to 100, right? That's the journey of life is to balance the joys that takes years off to how many years you'd want to live. Many think children take the most years off your life.
To my Mom's family, they toiled hard in the fields. Quality of life?
I think with Covid virus out now, and as people are suffering, I think we'll get to a saturation period where we're sick of hearing statistics and just want to live again. Regain our toughness.
To paraphrase Ivan Drago said in "Rocky IV" If we die, we die.
I think most of us are scared because we haven't done all the fun stuff we're suppose to be doing. Life is great, death is boring.