All the World's an Age

Aging occurs. At all times. Are we left with any choice but to embrace it? Frankly, no. But does that work?

As we’ve seen, in an age during which ageless stars perish at ostensible ages, most of us unwitting players in a left-behind series would scratch our wispily covered heads if only they retained any aherence to a commonly held belief that everybody actually lives an actual life. I know that I don’t have a lick of confidence in that system’s universal application. There’s too much perceived entitlement to exemption from decay. But none of us have that.

I would say that my parents’ generation—the “Baby Boomers”—are largely responsible for this mainstream resuscitation of the same “Fountain of Youth” fixation that led Ponce de Leon to “discover” Florida—which is one of history’s great ironies, considering. (The Baby Boomers have also made life extremely difficult for every subsequent generation, but more about that in other posts.)

Here’s my attitude about it: In order to be young, young people NEED for old people to BE OLD. And this boisterous denial of aging, while a feeble tendril of denying mortality, is the PITS for every beholder.

David Bowie (née Jones, it's been suggested), recently 65, had always conducted himself relatively honorably in this realm. He continued to have things like ideas, and when that wasn’t the case, he had the decency and good sense to run off and be in a play or what have you.

In 2002, however, he wrote a song entitled “Never Get Old.” I’ve never heard the song, but I was around near the time of its composition, and I believe that there was even talk of "Never Get Old" being the album’s title. Anyway, I have read the lyrics, and it’s self-aware and all that, but I can’t help but feel critical toward his even suggesting such a trite, stale idea. Just think of the ways in which the world could experience incalculable betterment with an attitude shift as represented by a song called “Get Old.”

Yes. Get the fuck OLD. Be as excited about turning 61 as you were about turning 7. Of course, you’re still able to be you—even more so, actually, now that you’re not trying to magically transcend the aging process.  

So, have a wonderful day becoming old, please. I will, starting now. Or then, I mean. Meant.