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| Image by Nathan Wright from Pixabay |
This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny — the Stickies — to advise 'em now, haunt them after I'm deleted.
I apologize for disrespecting anyone I judged to be old and out of it when I was a callowyute. I've been 39 for 31 years now and I'm disrespected almost daily so I'm paying for my sins. But I strive to not take it personally, it's just how things are in a youth-worshiping culture going 99 mph 24x7x365.
{I thought you didn't like the word disrespecting?}
I don't, Dana, it looks, and especially sounds, ugly, as does disrespected. In fact disrespected looks and sounds particularly ugly.
{Then why...}
Well, I'm an old man and I associate both of these words with those who aren't. I don't recall them being commonly used when I was younger and they're both very commonly used nowadays. So I'm trying to um... reach across the temporal gulf that separates me from both the truly young, and the younger than I, which is the point of this column.
{Huh. So you find certain words in themselves to be ugly, not necessarily what they... represent?}
Oh yeah. Take a word like misanthrope, hideous. Paradoxically, misanthropic is gorgeous.
{Huh.}
It's not you, it's me, I'm old.
This was supposed to be a column about Old v. Young but I quickly became entangled in so many possible threads that I decided to take the high road and instead warn/advise the young and younger than I, those who are still young enough to rarely if ever think about their inevitable decline and deletion.
When I was young, and I suspect this is true of most H. sapiens, I gave virtually no thought to getting old. On those rare occasions that I did, I was confident that this was even farther off than say... a term paper that was due by the end of next week, so why worry? HT: Alfred E. Newman.
But once H. sapiens mature a bit, but are still relatively young, they would be well served to be at least a little more aware that they will wake up one day, note that there's more sand in the bottom of the hourglass than the top, and live/plan accordingly.
But if they're anything like I was 100 years or so ago, they won't pay much attention when it's pointed out to them, even by a non-famous, non-syndicated, virtually unknown columnist.
{A 100 years? It appears that temporal distortion works in both directions.}
No doubt. Hey, apropos of not much, I once had a brother-in-law whose nickname was No-Doubt, about 75 years ago. He...
Although attempting to point out to the young/younger the utility of being prepared for, and/or maintaining an awareness of, one's eventual personal decline and fall is likely to be a fool's errand, perhaps a few tips on what being old in America is going to be like might be helpful.
{Say, do you know that "falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries" for geezers/geezerettes?}
I do, a not-so-fun fact that comes to mind every time my wrinkled bum and I get in/out of the shower, but what...
{We need to do more public service announcements.}
Anyways...
I know that you zany youngsters are already tired of hearing this, but you're not going to believe how fast your life will seem to have gone by once you can see the end approaching.
[Dana groans, loudly... there's exaggerated eye-rolling]
Seriously. I know-I know, you've probably experienced this to a certain degree, but trust me, you ain't seen nothin' yet; don't say I didn't warn you.
Now, more importantly, one day it's going to dawn on you, or you're going to be forced to admit, that even if you're still relatively sharp and young at heart, no one mistakes you for a spring chicken and that you may even be...old.
(On average: 70 or better. Warning: may be earlier.)
Note the word relatively; you will have lost some of your edge. It's important that you face up to this (not everyone does) and compensate accordingly.
The good news is that striving to fool the young and younger will help you to stay sharpish. Use it or lose it, right? Even better news: when you forget something or screw something up (accidentally or deliberately) that pees off the young/youngers you can invoke the Senior Moment defense.
Please manipulate responsibly (and judiciously). They may be looking for, even documenting, excuses to park your butt in a senior storage unit of some sort, particularly if they're seeking money, or revenge.
{Pees off?}
Sometimes a silly word choice can turn an uglier (and now ubiquitous) version of a word (that I heard a nun use the other day) into something funny. It's not you, it's me, I'm old. However, all gentlepersons should always be aware that often, funny may be a better option than crude.
{But not always?}
No, not always. It's a judgment call, context-dependent.
There are radically different kinds of old people. You must be aware of this early on so as to strive to avoid becoming one of the less-than-optimal versions.
You undoubtedly already know many people who began aging early on and have been calcifying ever since. Never particularly self-aware, they've embraced stereotypes all their lives. There will come a point where they have been at it so long they may be damaged, even shatter, when confronted with unwelcome changes.
They're so numerous that many young/youngers, due to unpleasant personal interactions magnified by the tendency of all sorts of media to lump all sorts of people into overly broad categories, may not realize that it's truly possible to age more or less gracefully, and keep a more or less open mind.
But watch out for obsessives and would-be immortals.
There are fine lines to be drawn between people attempting to maintain a reasonable standard of physical and mental health, people who are obsessed with maintaining high levels of health so as to have the energy levels needed to work all the damn time because they _______, and people who want to live forever because they _______.
{What's with all the blanks?}
Reasons/motivations/rationalizations vary widely. Oh, and I'm not talking about people who have to work all the damn time because life peed on them. And I think that many obsessives can't help it. And I think that the would-be immortals (unfortunately? fortunately?) haven't learned there's no shortage of things worse than death.
But I hope, that like Forrest Gump, at some point they decide that enough is enough and stop to smell the _______.
Poppa loves you,
