Old Age
You know, I'm getting really tired of people talking about old age as being a Bad Thing. The way they go on, they make it sound like ageing past 25 is the worst thing you can do.
I've lived long enough, known enough people, and seen enough of the world that I can say with certainty that there is nothing wrong with being 50 or even 60. Age itself is not the problem. It's what you do with it that's a problem.
Here's what I think: first, that the reason people see old age as a Bad Thing is because they lose the physical beauty that comes upon them after puberty. You know, you're only beautiful for a window of about ten years. In a lifespan that averages 80 years, that's quite a narrow focus, don't you think? Not to mention that there's more to life than physical beauty. I think this shows how shallow humans, as a species, tend to be.
Secondly, it seems to me as if many of the problems associated with old age are the result of excess in youth. Just as one example, the Chosen Spousal Unit and I don't engage in popular but less-than-healthy activities such as consumption of alcohol, smoking, drinking coffee, tanning, harsh beauty techniques such as clothing that constricts internal organs, surgery, or excessive body modification. We've managed to avoid many of the stress-inducing activities that nearly everyone else engages in (raising children is just one example, and I'm not suggesting that children are a leading cause of old people being ugly, merely that being a parent is stressful). As a result, we are often mistaken for being five to ten years younger than we actually are.
Thirdly, there is a lot of good stuff that you get at older ages that you simply can't have at younger periods. As much as the body is fully mature by around age 20, the brain (and resultantly, the mind) doesn't stop developing until around age 25 at the earliest. There are many patterns of thought, ways of thinking, bits of knowledge, and other scraps of mental and emotional maturity that are missing from the young. They are not always possessed by older people, but they are NEVER possessed by the young. Whatever your problems with Spiro Agnew may be (assuming you have any), I feel that he was absolutely correct when he delivered this speech in Houston on 22 May, 1970. The older people in the world have something more useful than physical energy and prowess to offer, and we would do well to acknowledge that and make use of it.
I also think that people are afraid of getting old because they see it as being closer to death, and boy, do people fear death. Blue Oyster Cult was made famous with the song "Don't Fear the Reaper," which is a good point, but clumsily made. A better attempt was written by the Egyptians in 3000 BC, and you can see it as the second to last text on this page, where it begins "Death is before me today." Death not something we should fear, if we've lived a good, full life.
Which brings me to my final point; people fear getting old, I think, because of the mistakes and missed opportunities from their youth. To which I say this: don't make those mistakes and don't miss those opportunities. Ok, yes, we all make mistakes, but there are certain things that everyone knows they will regret doing ten years later, and yet they do them anyway. We should know better, and yet we prefer to think that we'll be 18 for the rest of our lives, and so we ignore our better judgement. Certain things that, in our old age, we look back and think, "Why did I do that?" Or, "Why didn't I do that?" I seriously believe that we have the power to know what we'll regret later in life. All we have to do is heed that wisdom and not make those mistakes.
Being old is not a Bad Thing until you get old enough to stop thinking rationally or effectively. Don't be afraid of being old. Be afraid of not living your life to the fullest. And that doesn't mean physical excess; that means the embracing of other aspects of life than the body; the heart and mind and soul as well. Grow old, but don't become a grump in so doing. Being old is not a bad thing.
I've lived long enough, known enough people, and seen enough of the world that I can say with certainty that there is nothing wrong with being 50 or even 60. Age itself is not the problem. It's what you do with it that's a problem.
Here's what I think: first, that the reason people see old age as a Bad Thing is because they lose the physical beauty that comes upon them after puberty. You know, you're only beautiful for a window of about ten years. In a lifespan that averages 80 years, that's quite a narrow focus, don't you think? Not to mention that there's more to life than physical beauty. I think this shows how shallow humans, as a species, tend to be.
Secondly, it seems to me as if many of the problems associated with old age are the result of excess in youth. Just as one example, the Chosen Spousal Unit and I don't engage in popular but less-than-healthy activities such as consumption of alcohol, smoking, drinking coffee, tanning, harsh beauty techniques such as clothing that constricts internal organs, surgery, or excessive body modification. We've managed to avoid many of the stress-inducing activities that nearly everyone else engages in (raising children is just one example, and I'm not suggesting that children are a leading cause of old people being ugly, merely that being a parent is stressful). As a result, we are often mistaken for being five to ten years younger than we actually are.
Thirdly, there is a lot of good stuff that you get at older ages that you simply can't have at younger periods. As much as the body is fully mature by around age 20, the brain (and resultantly, the mind) doesn't stop developing until around age 25 at the earliest. There are many patterns of thought, ways of thinking, bits of knowledge, and other scraps of mental and emotional maturity that are missing from the young. They are not always possessed by older people, but they are NEVER possessed by the young. Whatever your problems with Spiro Agnew may be (assuming you have any), I feel that he was absolutely correct when he delivered this speech in Houston on 22 May, 1970. The older people in the world have something more useful than physical energy and prowess to offer, and we would do well to acknowledge that and make use of it.
I also think that people are afraid of getting old because they see it as being closer to death, and boy, do people fear death. Blue Oyster Cult was made famous with the song "Don't Fear the Reaper," which is a good point, but clumsily made. A better attempt was written by the Egyptians in 3000 BC, and you can see it as the second to last text on this page, where it begins "Death is before me today." Death not something we should fear, if we've lived a good, full life.
Which brings me to my final point; people fear getting old, I think, because of the mistakes and missed opportunities from their youth. To which I say this: don't make those mistakes and don't miss those opportunities. Ok, yes, we all make mistakes, but there are certain things that everyone knows they will regret doing ten years later, and yet they do them anyway. We should know better, and yet we prefer to think that we'll be 18 for the rest of our lives, and so we ignore our better judgement. Certain things that, in our old age, we look back and think, "Why did I do that?" Or, "Why didn't I do that?" I seriously believe that we have the power to know what we'll regret later in life. All we have to do is heed that wisdom and not make those mistakes.
Being old is not a Bad Thing until you get old enough to stop thinking rationally or effectively. Don't be afraid of being old. Be afraid of not living your life to the fullest. And that doesn't mean physical excess; that means the embracing of other aspects of life than the body; the heart and mind and soul as well. Grow old, but don't become a grump in so doing. Being old is not a bad thing.