This week, only days after 104-year-old Dorothy Hoffner of Chicago became the world’s oldest skydiver, she died in her sleep; a peaceful end to a life well-lived.

“Age is just a number,’’ Hoffner, who retired 43 years ago, told a crowd soon after jumping out of a plane from 4100 metres.

But 104 is a big number and as life expectancy continues to climb, scientists, medicos, researchers and billionaires are looking for the elixir of life; the secret that could mean it becomes a “perfectly reasonable aspiration’’, in the words of The Economist, to reach the age of 120.

Just imagine that.

Life expectancy in Australia now sits at 85.56 years for women, and almost 82 years for men. The median age – this year – is 37.5 years.

Can you imagine, at 40, being only one-third of the way through your life? At 80, you’d be keeping candles that might be needed for another 40 years!

It’s almost incomprehensible. And yet, it’s not.

In early eras – the Bronze and Iron ages – people could expect to live to just 26. In 2023, the average marriage age is older than that! (It’s 27 for women and 30 for men).

Of course, plagues and diseases, world wars and childbirth had huge influences on the mortality rates of early populations. Now, the global life expectancy is at its highest level, ever.

And according to experts, that will only continue to climb as money and research is put into finding the secret to old age.

Dorothy Hoffner, 104, who did a 13,500-foot tandem leap from an airplane a week ago, has died, local media reported pic.twitter.com/kK0WLz3u98

— Reuters (@Reuters) October 11, 2023

The menu of possibilities is huge. While centenarians make up a tiny slice of the population, their lives are studied along with mice, diets, exercise regimes, geography, genes and modern medicine.

Without doubt, being happy and having a sense of belonging and manageable stress levels help. Every piece of research seems to suggest that.

So does exercise. Having younger friends, eating fewer calories, the right diet (whatever that might be), longer periods of fasting, and having regular medical check-ups are also on almost all the lists drawn up by those with the age of 120 in mind.

But the value of being gifted good genes stands out. One of my friend’s grandmothers enjoyed a couple of packets of cigarettes a day, at the age of 95. Others have lost parents and partners and children, who all treated their bodies as temples and marathons as hobbies.

So while the race to celebrate 120th birthdays continues in laboratories and pledges and billionaires’ dreams, would you really want to reach that milestone?

A telegram from King Charles, at 100, would mean you’d still have another two decades ahead. Great-grandchildren would deliver great-great-grandchildren and great-great-great-grandchildren, and babysitting duties might continue into your 90s.

With home prices as they are, it would be fair to believe that many of those will also live under your roof. We might be living with a new currency, new days of the week, and even a new number of months in the year. How would that affect birthdays?

Perhaps my focus is too much on the minutia of everyday life. Perhaps living well, past 100 years, should be seen as one of life’s real successes.

But with the poor public policy focus on how our aged live well, we’d need to ensure we kept sufficient dimes in our super fund. Given the cost of living in 2023, most days might be rainy by then.

Will the Reserve Bank still exist? What about smartphones, or will they give way to smart, smart devices we can’t even imagine? Will the pension still exist when we are living to 120? Does that mean the pension will only kick in at 93? Even to fund that, we’d need to blow the debt ceiling off its rafters to fund it.

But while public policy doesn’t look to how we might extend our lives, the push to live longer, and younger, will continue with enthusiasm.

We are now competing in park runs and half-marathons at 60 and 70, colouring our hair more than ever before and spending hours on wordle and word games to keep our brains active.

Imagine our parents running around a park carrying a tyre, or queuing for a Pilates class at 78.

Perhaps it’s worth it. Life by numbers.

Or perhaps Dorothy Hoffner, at 104 years, was one of the very lucky ones: Living life to the full and jumping out of a plane at the very end.

“She was indefatigable,’’ a nurse told media after she died in her sleep. “She was not someone who would take naps in the afternoon, or not show up for any function, dinner or anything else. She was always there, fully present. She kept going, always.’’

Vale Dorothy Hoffner. We can applaud you without coveting either your age or your adventurous spirit.