고기 즐겨먹는 100세 헨리 키신저, 장수 비결은?

고기 즐겨먹는 100세 헨리 키신저, 장수 비결은?


< 조선일보, 박상철 전남대 연구석좌교수,  2023.07.19. >

 

미소(美蘇) 데탕트, 미중 수교 등 20세기 중반부터 세계사 흐름을 이끌었던 헨리 키신저 전 미국 국무장관이 올해 100세 되었다. 1923년생이다.

그의 아들은 최근 미국 신문 워싱턴포스트지에 ‘나의 아버지 헨리 키신저의 백세 장수 비결’이라는 기고를 했다. 격동과 긴장의 삶을 살아 왔고, 백 살이 된 지금도 왕성하게 활동하는 바탕을 가까이 지켜본 아들이 설명했으니, 장수학자로서 주목하지 않을 수 없었다.

키신저는 독일식 소시지와 돈가스처럼 쇠고기를 튀겨 먹는 비너 슈니첼을 즐기고 있다. 소식이나 채식과는 거리가 멀다. 스포츠도 보기를 좋아했지, 결코 몸소 하지 않았다. 종래 장수 비법과는 동떨어진 생활 습관이었다.

반면 의지적 행동은 예사 사람들과 달리 특별했다. 생각이나 신앙이 다른 이들을 결코 적대시하지 않았다. 노회한 소련 대사 도브리닌과 초긴장 협상을 할 때도 체스를 두면서 여유를 가졌다고 한다.

그칠 줄 모르는 그의 활동 동력은 무엇보다도 호기심이었다. AI(인공지능)가 등장하자 95세 때부터 대학원생과 같은 열정으로 그 문제점을 파고들기 시작하여 이미 책 두 권을 발간했다. 그중 한 권이 ‘AI의 시대: 그리고 우리 인간의 미래’이다. 백 살이 된 지금도 미래를 이야기하며 새로운 책 집필도 시작했다.

호기심과 사명감의 근저에는 강한 의지를 바탕으로 한 근면과 열정이 있다. 이는 <하자> <주자> <배우자> 등 장수 3원칙을 실천하면서 살아가는 모습이다. 백 살 나이에도 주저하지 않고 앞으로 계속 나가는 진행형 삶을 살아가는 키신저, 신체적 노력에 못지않게 부단한 정신적 의지가 장수 결정 요인임을 여실히 보여주고 있다.

 

 

My father, Henry Kissinger, is turning 100. This is his guide to longevity.
By David Kissinger

 

Washington Post

May 25, 2023 at 6:38 p.m. EDT

David Kissinger is president of the television production company Conaco.

 

On Saturday, my father, Henry Kissinger, celebrates his 100th birthday. This might have an air of inevitability for anyone familiar with his force of character and love of historical symbolism. Not only has he outlived most of his peers, eminent detractors and students, but he has also remained indefatigably active throughout his 90s.

Even the pandemic did not slow him down: Since 2020, he has completed two books and begun work on a third. He  returned from the Bilderberg Conference in Lisbon earlier this week just in time to embark on a series of centennial celebrations that will take him from New York to London and finally to his hometown of Fürth, Germany.

My father’s longevity is especially miraculous when one considers the health regimen he has followed throughout his  adult life, which includes a diet heavy on bratwurst and Wiener schnitzel, a career of relentlessly stressful decision-making, and a love of sports purely as a spectator, never a participant.

David Von Drehle: My neighbor lived to be 109. This is what I learned from him.

How then to account for his enduring mental and physical vitality? He has an unquenchable curiosity that keeps him dynamically engaged with the world.  His mind is a heat-seeking weapon that identifies and grapples with the existential challenges of the day. In the 1950s, the issue was the rise of nuclear weapons and their threat to humanity. About five years ago, as a promising young man of 95, my father became obsessed with the philosophical and practical implications of artificial intelligence.

As the Thanksgiving turkey was passed around in recent years, he would ruminate about the repercussions of this new  technology, in ways that occasionally reminded his grandchildren of storylines in the Terminator films. While immersing himself in the technical aspects of AI with the intensity of an MIT grad student, he infused the debate over its uses with his singular philosophical and historical insight.

The other secret to my father’s endurance is his sense of mission.  Although he has been caricatured as a cold realist, he is anything but dispassionate. He believes deeply in such arcane concepts as patriotism, loyalty and bipartisanship. It pains him to see the nastiness in today’s public discourse and the seeming collapse of the art of diplomacy.

As a child, I remember the warmth of his friendships with people whose politics might have been different from his, such as Kay Graham, Ted Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. Kennedy loved to play practical jokes that my father thoroughly  enjoyed (including inviting Dad to his home office and claiming to have a mongoose hidden in a closet).

David Ignatius: Why artificial intelligence is now a primary concern for Henry Kissinger

Even as Cold War tensions persisted, Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin was a frequent guest at our house.  The two of them would occasionally play games of chess between negotiating issues affecting the entire planet. My father had no illusions about the repressive nature of the Soviet regime, but these regular conversations helped de-escalate tensions at a time when the nuclear superpowers appeared to be on a collision course. If only such regular dialogue occurred between the top players in today’s global tensions.

Chess aside, diplomacy was never a game for my father. He practiced it with a commitment and tenacity born of personal experience. As a refugee from Nazi Germany, he had lost 13 family members and countless friends to the Holocaust. He returned to his native Germany as an American soldier, participating in the liberation of the Ahlem concentration camp near Hannover.  There, he witnessed the depths to which mankind can sink unconstrained by international structures of peace and justice. Next month, we will return to Fürth, where he will lay a wreath at the grave of his grandfather, who did not escape.

I know that no son can be truly objective about his father’s legacy,  but I am proud of my father’s efforts to anchor statecraft with consistent principles and an awareness of historical reality.

 

This is the mission he has pursued for the better part of a century, using his rare brain and unflagging energy to serve the country that saved his family and launched him on a journey beyond his wildest dreams.