For me it’s almost the opposite. It’s the struggle that keeps me going.

What can I achieve that I haven’t yet achieved?

What can I write, sing, play that I haven’t yet sung, played or written?

And somehow time backs me up on this: after years of playing guitar I play better now than ever before. I took 3 years of classical voice lessons when I was in my 50′s. Now I can sing. After years of trying to write songs like Bob Dylan or John Lennon I’ve finally found my own voice and people say, ‘Yeah, that sounds like you.’ What a gift, what an absolute treasure that is.

I guess it’s my way of living Dylan Thomas’ poem:
Do not go gentle into that good night
Old age should burn and rave at the end of day
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

I came here in search of your address. I found this very though provoking blog.

Funny the things we stumble onto – in our old age.

Each birth is truly nature’s attempt at perfection!

Paul

Good comments, however. I find myself at 60 easing into the start of the second half ;>) if my father’s longevity – will be 92 this year – is any indication of my genetic makeup. Introspection – a process that has exponentially increased within me the last 5 or so year. My reactions to my introspection have been calm; I find myself accepting more and understanding how so many slender threads (Robert Johnson – “Balancing Heaven and Earth”) have brought me to the place(s) I am. This is especially true with my kids, and now with 2 grandsons
http://www.turbatrio.blogspot.com/
- the time to take my place on the Great Mandela has arrived. I really like the fact that the puzzle pieces are finding their places on the board, gently sliding into place. Tears come very easily now at the thought of the grandness, the beauty, and the meaning of it all.

Your reaction to the young person who asked you about being old was and is predictable.In any case it reminds me of a poem I once read about a veteran of the Cvil War who was shopping at a General Store when he was approached by some children who wanted to know how he came to have a peg leg.He leaned over to them, smiling and asserted:”A bear bit it off!” The children were dazzled with the story while he suffered through his war time experience all over again.

Women have menapause to guide them into their maturity while men have confusion and fantasies mired in testosterone.

One ought to be mindful of George Bernard Shaw’s saying:”Youth, what a shame it’s wasted on the young.” Of course, he was in his nineties at the time.The irony of all of this is that if we had any part of our lives to do over we would do exactly what we did the first time.

The answer to the question doesn’t quite have the sound of truth to it. What on earth does it mean to “like being old?” You sound like you put on your dancing shoes to celebrate your lost youth. And you sound like Martin Luther King:”The truth will set you free!” Older age hasn’t set you or anyone else free. What has taken place apparently is what used to happen in the old classical Japanese experience. You’ve reached an age whereby you want to don a red kimona. The red kimona in Japanese culture signifies that the wearer will no longer be sensitive to the sensibilities of others, but will rather speak his mind in an unfiltered fashion.

Thornton Wilder said that each birth is nature’s attempt at perfection. A sentiment which I have found comforting when thought of in conjunction with Charlie Darwin’s survival of the fittest. Actually Charlie said that not only the fittest survive, but the most beautiful.

Given all the circumstances surrounding your birth, you were the best and the most beautiful you could be. That ought to be enough comfort for one even in his seniority.

So as I lift my Martini to celebrate your munching your cookie, I realize that though the causes are different the result is the same.

Here’s to you, old friend!
Paul