Age: It's not important

by Joe
(MO)

When do you feel old? When do you feel young? You can measure your years by aches and pains, by the decreasing efficiency of your memory, or by the weight of knowledge that grows. You can look to youth for freshness and vitality, for hope and promise.

You will not find answers there, however. It’s all nonsense.

Someone somewhere decided to apply numbers to people, to count the times that the earth has returned to its place.

It means nothing.

When I was a young child, I was considered very intelligent and serious. I was a little adult. I spoke and wrote with words and style that my teachers couldn’t call into service readily.

Was I young? Was I old?

Now, I don’t take my ability to tie my shoes for granted. I’m not sure that I really understand half the things that go on around me. I make declarations of nonsense for the fun of it, and l like to get down on the floor with the dogs to play with them.

Is this wisdom, the recognition that nobody really has any answers, that taking life seriously is a faulty strategy? Perhaps, or maybe I’m just young and incapable.

We’re all just people living in this moment.

Some of us have experience, and some are fresh and see no limits to possibilities.

Some are young fools and some are old ones.

We are all just drawing on what we’ve been given, trying to make it to the next moment intact. Respect for freshness and experience are important, but when we label one person “young” and “another “old,” we place yet more barriers between ourselves.

Isn’t it better to share what we’re been given, and to help one another through the struggles of this particular moment?

Wendy: Amen.