Living Toward Everything: A New Direction For Humanity

By Saverio

Living Toward Everything is an honest and hopeful journey about where humanity stands in the quest to extend life.

It delves into the truths about what’s being done to increase human longevity with rejuvenated biology and how close we are to getting there.

After five years of dealing with end o

• Language: English
• Publisher: Saverio Rebecchi
• Release date: Apr 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9780692115305

Book preview

Saverio

Living Toward Everything

A New Direction For Humanity

First published by Saverio in 2018

Copyright © Saverio, 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

First Edition

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To…

Amy Leigh

Jennifer Michelle

Vivian Grace

John Henry

Agatha Lee

in order of their birth.

Contents

Preface

Introduction

SUPERMAN AND THE PRESIDENT

WHERE WE ARE HEADING

FROM PRIESTHOOD TO PARENTHOOD

GUILTY AS CHARGED!

WHAT MAKES LIVING AND DYING BAD?

GOING BEYOND WHAT IF? INTO WHAT’S NEXT?

WHERE WE STAND WITH LONGEVITY

A RIGHT TO TRY NOT TO DIE

WHAT IS EVERYTHING TO LIVE TOWARD?

DOES EVERYTHING EXIST?

LIFE EXTENSION AND EVERYTHING

LIVING TO BE INSTEAD OF LIVING TO DIE

HOW FAR WE HAVE COME TOWARD EVERYTHING

THE VALUE OF AN EVERLASTING LIFE

FAR OUT THINKING

RELIGION IN THE JOURNEY TOWARD EVERYTHING

CALLING ALL LIFE EXTENSION ACTIVISTS

WE ALL SHARE THE SAME INJUSTICE!

Preface

Nearly one hundred years ago my grandmother was determined to give her next son the name Saverio. She alone knew why it was so important to do.

Unfortunately, the intended died at birth, but she stood with her decision for the next birth… who also failed to live beyond a few days. The third was my father who obviously survived and was given the name that meant so much to her.

My parents named their first son after my mother’s father and as the second son I was given the name my grandmother loved so much that she endured three pregnancies to be sure it was part of her family history.

When I was old enough to care about the background of the name, I had yet to experience much of the identity issues that come from having a not so common first name. I was accustomed to being called Junior, which I accepted pretty much most of my childhood, knowing that it indicated I was my dad’s namesake.

My teachers seemed to love saying Saverio, even though all my classmates called me Junior, because it was a neighborhood school and most of them knew me way before kindergarten. Even when I went on to High School the Junior label stayed with me outside of classes.

Just after I turned 16, I landed my first real job at a new local super market. As it happened, the first day at work, the shift manager called me up to help with bagging groceries, using the store’s loud speaker system. Unfortunately, he did not remember my name and called out his best guess that was somewhat, kind of close to my actual name… Sal. Well at least it began with the same first letter and it was a more common Italian first name.

Now, understanding that several of my schoolmates were in the building as fellow employees, when they realized it was me that the name was meant for, it did not take long before everyone I ever met in school and other places decided to call me by that name. Unfortunately, it stayed with me for the next 35 years.

Although on official documents I stuck with my birth name of Saverio, I became accustomed to using Sal mostly because, when introducing myself, it lifted the burden of having to spell Saverio and explain how I ended up with such an unusual name.

In my early 20’s the Country singer, Johnny Cash recorded a song written by Shel Silverstein for his friend Jean Shephard who complained to him that growing up with a name that could also be given to a girl, he suffered lots of bullying by his schoolmates. The song is titled A Boy Named Sue.

For many years thereafter, when people learned that my name was Saverio and not Sal, I would call it my Sue name so they would understand that it wasn’t easy to disclose for pretty much the same reasons mentioned in the song.

Just before my 50th birthday, when it was clear I was on the downside of life’s longevity curve, I started to think about the legacy I would leave behind and the story about my grandmother’s passion for the name Saverio. So… I decided to embrace the uniqueness and wear it proudly in her honor. I would never again introduce myself as Sal and requested that old friends and family use my real name.

I also decided to equip myself with more information about the origin of the name, in order to provide those who wanted to know more about it. What I learned was quite surprising and it gave me a theory about why the name may have become so important to my grandmother.

Unlike what many have suggested to me, Saverio is not a derivative of the religious term of savior. I did have a former employee, who later became a close friend, and referred to me as The Savior because I would always have some work for him when his funds were running low.

You see, my grandmother came to America back in 1913 when she was 17 years old. She listed her profession on the ship’s docket as a housekeeper. Like many who arrived from Italy back then she left her birth land seeking a better life than the poverty most everyone from Southern Italy lived in back then.

When researching the origins of Saverio, I learned that it is a cognate of Xavier the Romanization of etxe berri meaning new house or new home. The discovery led me to think about what a 17-year-old girl was feeling about her future while on that ship that took her across the ocean. She left her homeland to start a new life in a foreign country, where she did not speak the language. What a courageous, enterprising or perhaps even desperate person she must have been.

Within a few years after arriving, she meets the love of her life who had also immigrated from Italy. They married, started a family and saved enough to buy a house of their own. That was all quite a remarkable success coming from a life of near poverty.

In thinking about her determination to have a child named Saverio and learning that its meaning is new home or some say, new beginning, I’m pretty sure the name was her way of expressing how grateful she was for all this country had provided.

Thinking back to the years that I did not appreciate the importance of my name, it’s only right that I do what I can in the time I have left to show my respect for the gift that has been passed down to me.

This publication and the new beginning it has to offer humanity, is authored by me, the grandson of the adventurer Guiseppina Squillante