Two years ago, at a conference in Miami on Alzheimer’s disease, after a session about risk factors and biomarker prediction models, a colleague remarked to Jason Karlawish, M.D., how the singer Leonard Cohen has been saying onstage that when he turns 80, he will resume smoking. As he pondered that comment, Alzheimer’s biomarkers and our zeal to foresee our future, Dr. Karlawish began to think of an essay to take on the question, “When should we set aside a life lived for the future and, instead, embrace the pleasures of the present?”
The essay was published last week in the New York Times, and you can read it here.