If you live long enough, you’ll revert to the ways of infancy, no teeth, poor eyesight, can’t walk, always drooling, peeing and messing up yourself. It’s not pretty, as both ends of the age range are similar. They do say, ‘Once a man, twice a child.’
So, don’t believe them when they say that old age brings pleasures, and you must look forward to the golden years. It’s baloney, balderdash, bunkum, bovine crap, a lot of hooey.
The golden years are now, when you can still run up and down like a horse, dance to your heart’s content, and romance like there’s no tomorrow.
At least that’s what I was told by an old timer who whispered to me “Don’t get old, it’s no fun.”
I was in the pharmacy recently where I overheard a poor old lady lamenting the high cost of her medication. She muttered to whoever would lend an ear, “Look at my bill, it cost too much to get sick, too much to live and too much to die.”
And that is the plight of many older folks who are not enjoying the so called pleasures of growing old. Of course young people get sick too, but it’s a guarantee that as you get older, the probability of you having health issues will increase.
And it doesn’t have to be anything debilitating either, but just the regular wearing out of parts, such as the knee and hip joints that cause discomfort or pain.
So, if you can do it, don’t get old, for it brings no joy. In fact, it was George Bernard Shaw who said, “ Youth is wasted on the young.” Members of the Hippie culture back in the 1960s in the USA also said, “Live fast, die young and leave a pretty corpse.”
I’m not sure if I totally agree with that, for there’s merit to growing old and living your life to the fullest, enjoying as many experiences as you can, but I can appreciate where they’re coming from. When you see how old age destroys some people it can really make you shudder and hope that fate does not befall you.
Then there are some people who as they hit late forties or fifties they start to age, look and act really old.
“The man is barely forty eight but acting like he’s seventy eight.”
That being said though, there are certain characteristics that emerge when people get old, although some folks try to mask them. Ironically, there are some who although young, exhibit the characteristics of old age.
Still, no matter how hard you try to slow it down or even stop it, there is no fountain of youth, no elixir, no pill to retard the ageing process. The passage of time still creeps up on you, sometimes it rushes, and with it the ravages of growing old.
A man I know told me that he made such a mistake when he married a woman who was older than he was. “Now that I am sixty seven, she is eighty. What am I doing with an eighty year old woman?”
It may sound cruel, but he was genuinely perturbed of the prospect of being married to a woman who was eighty years old, even though he was still a sprightly sixties.
“When I was thirty and she was forty three it was fine, even when we were forties and fifties, but eighty is quite daunting.”
That’s why many a mother will advise her son not to marry a woman who is older than him.
“It is not strange, that desire should so many years, outlive performance. “ Shakespeare. But men still look, leer and lust.
That’s why you should not be judgemental of those cashy older men who get involved with young women. Maybe they’re trying to regain their youth.
Even as you get older it doesn’t mean that you have to act old. Stay as young as you can for as long as you can, for based on what I’ve seen and heard, growing old has no positive pleasures. Old age sucks.
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