Clinton keeps a second home in Santa Fe, where he enjoys visiting local landmarks such as Canyon Road.

Clinton keeps a second home in Santa Fe, where he enjoys visiting local landmarks such as Canyon Road.
A century ago, when life expectancy in the United Stated was about 62, most people worked until they died. Now that most people live into their 80s, they have decades to fill after retirement, and for many in their 60s and 70s, the idea that their best years are already gone is ludicrous.
“I’m healthy. I’m motivated. I’m getting a master’s degree and hiking Everest, not riding off into the sunset,” says Michael Clinton, a true believer in living your best life for as long as possible.
When the part-time Santa Fe resident stepped away from his more than 40-year career in publishing at age 65, he bristled whenever someone assumed he was going to golf and nap himself into oblivion. The former president and publisher of Hearst Magazines was “ready for his next chapter,” so he wrote Roar, a self-help book about enthusiastically embracing vibrant aging. In the process, he discovered an emerging science and social movement that led to his second book: Longevity Nation: The People, Ideas, and Trends Changing the Second Half of Our Lives (Atria Books). In it Clinton explores numerous areas under the longevity umbrella, from new medical frontiers to realistic portrayals of older people in advertising.
How is longevity different from aging? It’s a start instead of an end, says Clinton.
Words matter, especially in a society where aging comes with so much baggage. Longevity changes the conversation. In Western cultures, especially in America, there’s so much inherent discrimination about aging, the assumption that you’re not keeping up with the world.
We all have our own personal circumstances to cope with — health, socioeconomic background, lack of income — but longevity is a movement forward to give people more positive possibilities.
I call it a social movement happening in real time because it’s the annoying boomers who are really driving the change. They were the original activists who marched against Vietnam, supported the women’s movement and other social movements. Now we are 60, 70, 80 and starting new businesses, new fitness regimens, getting re-partnered.
I equate the longevity movement to the women’s movement. When my mother was young, she was told to be a teacher or a secretary. Now a young woman looks at the world around her and has a huge number of role models.
Whether we like it or not, we take so many of our cultural cues and clues from television, movies, celebrities, advertising, which often depict older people as not even knowing how to text, or actors are given grandmotherly roles. But look at Helen Mirren playing a bad-ass assassin. When I was younger, you never saw role models who were dynamic, engaged 70-year-olds.
My parents drank, didn’t exercise, and ate processed food. Boomers were the first generation to stop smoking and focus more on their health. If you’re healthy and you’re going to live longer, you have to have opportunities to reinvent yourself.
Long-distance running was always my moving meditation. I was a marathon runner when I was younger, but when I was 54, my sister, who was in her early 40s, asked me to run a marathon with her. Since then I’ve run 15 more. When I turned 60, I ran on my seventh continent: Antarctica. I did the nine-day hike to the Everest base camp and then ran the marathon back down to celebrate turning 70. Not everyone can run marathons. But my message is to find your movement, because movement is such an important part of being healthy.
When I was 65, I got a master’s degree in nonprofit philanthropy. But to be a lifelong learner, you can take a couple of classes or take an online course.
I started as a writer, gave it up for the publishing side, and reclaimed it in my 60s. I write for Esquire. I’ve written for Men’s Health. It’s a great message — reclaiming something you left behind, especially when you know you’re good at it.
Reinvention is relative to someone’s individual life. I talk about it with a small “r.” You don’t have to run a 10K. Go to the track at the local high school and walk one lap around. Reinvention can be a baby step into something that’s going to be good for you. You can pick up good habits or stop bad ones.
I was invited to speak to an independent living community. A third of them were in wheelchairs, a number of them in their 90s. We talked about how, with our laptops today, we have so much opportunity to plug into the world. Free courses online. Virtual tours of cities around the world. Tours of museums. We can enrich our brains.
We’re at a really interesting juncture of medicines and technologies that will manifest longer life expectancies for the next generation, if not the current generation. Have you heard of exoskeleton technology? It’s out of Japan. You put on this suit and your mobility improves. Have you heard about the digital twin? With AI, they’re going to create a digital twin of your biology, and as they develop medications for you individually, they’re going to test the drug on your digital twin. That’s pretty far-out stuff.
Everyone asks me if they should take peptides or supplements. I say stop. What are your core habits? Movement — as much as one can within their individual capacity. Next, what are you eating? How is your sleep? What is your purpose? And prevention is everything. Get your scans, your colonoscopies. Make sure what you’re doing has scientific backup.
In a post-65 life, you need some purpose. My friend is 78 and rides his horse six days a week, so it doesn’t have to be work. It just has to be something you’re passionate about.
Santa Fe is one of the best places in the world for longevity. We love the outdoors, the light, the pace of life, the food. Participating in the arts is great for brain health, and creativity thrives in Santa Fe. It’s an engaged community. When I go to Santa Fe, I’m always amazed at how many people I run into on the trails who are fit, healthy, and 80.
Learn more about Michael Clinton’s work at roarforward.com.
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