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Our expert monthly view on everything dental wellness related
Welcome to the third of my columns where I try to reconcile observations on the world with my thoughts about the work I do caring for the mouths and teeth of patients in my Cambridge clinic as well as my research beyond this.
Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die, is a quote attributed to the champion boxer Joe Louis.
Some descriptions make heaven sound like a celestial North Korea; with eternal surveillance of one’s thoughts, deeds and location. I believe (post enlightenment) fear of death is less about concern over one’s future quarters and more about empathy for our “people” and the world we leave behind us. Of course, this assumes the capacity for thoughtfulness and empathy and empathetic concern for the wellbeing and happiness of others. Sadly, for society, there is plenty of evidence that thoughtfulness and empathy can’t and shouldn’t be taken for granted, but it absolutely makes things objectively better for all.
Humans fear the loss, or the abandonment, of those we love in equal measure, as Dafydd Ap Gwilym communicates in his Aubade:
But tell me, best beloved of men,
“Will you come again? Will you come again?”
“Gwen, you know I’m your nightingale,
And I’ll be with you without fail,
When the cloud is cloak, and the dark is sky,
And when the night comes, so will I.”
The prospect of aging and death has occupied poets, artists, and philosophers since humans evolved language to communicate their emotions. The desire to live one’s longest and healthiest life is intrinsic to most of us. It is less that we want to live the longest life, rather that we wish for healthy and active lives right up until the end. I would rather enjoy the activity and energy displayed by our Canine Beings (fully active until about a fortnight before I fall asleep for the last time), than suffer a long-winded and debilitating decline.
This brings me to the discipline of health maintenance via good diet, hygiene and healthy exercise. These actions re simple, inexpensive and our physiology responds extremely well to such measures. The undeniable benefits seen following the adoption of fasting and / or GLP-1 receptor agonist therapeutics are leading to the collection of powerful datasets. This, to me, fits the philosophy of “age defying” in as much as it enables us to forestall the decrepitude we often witnessed in our elderly relatives.
The pursuit of youth via surgical intervention can (and often continues to) produce results that look neither healthy nor even human. This applies in my field of prosthodontics (restorative and reconstructive dentistry). Implausible, monumental, brilliant white teeth are a giveaway that something has been “interfered with”. A natural beauty conveys the absence of ill-health. So, if restoring one (or all) of a patient’s teeth, the aim is to create the appearance that the individual has never suffered ill-health or disease of the teeth or mouth (whilst also being robust and durable).
This returns us to thoughtfulness and empathy, where a professional ethos always places the wellbeing of a patient (or client) above all else. Which of us would not prefer to mature and age without any appearance of ill-health or suffering, but with what evolution and the biological world has spent millennia perfecting? Achieving this is surely, then, the goal of the thoughtful and empathetic clinician.
If there’s a topic you’d like me to cover or a question you’d like answered, please get in touch at myles@specialistdentalpartners.co.uk or info@wellohello.co.uk
Until next time,
Myles
