Old But Risky

We each will approach this aging stuff differently.  Lately I've been deeply into the 60-is-the-new-40 meme, which of course is a type of denial, but also a type of defiance.  Defiance in the face of aging seems like a good thing, something that keeps you alive, and that has to be the point.

But the raging desire* to stay alive translates itself in some strange ways.  The codgers who are fearful of everything - falling, children, strangers - for them, staying alive seems to mean cutting off risk.  And living, in my view, a pretty boring life.

Old people should be the ones bungee jumping, but they don't.  It's the young who take risks with abandon, maybe because they don't fear death or injury.  Or because they know that just marking time is a great evil, and when we come to fear death we forget that.

I think my answers will be to look for unpredictability and to take risks that mean something more than an adrenaline rush.  60 really isn't the new 40.  It's the new eternal, throwing yourself into the flow, replacing fear with a sense of humor.


* Yeah, OK, my now-favorite poem:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas, o'course.