Age against the dying of the light
Jul. 20th, 2008 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity."
- Mark Twain
Happy birthday wishes to noted D.C. blogger dl004d, who turns 30-something today.
He was telling me just yesterday that a person's 30s represent the best decade of their life, because it is the period during which physical wellness, wisdom and means are at their highest cumulative apex.
As his theory goes, a person's 20s are filled with high-minded dreams and energy but lack the money or status necessary to make much use of them. In one's 40s, one is presumably flush with the basic necessities and comforts but is too jaded or tired to truly enjoy them.
I don't know whether or not to believe him. Beyond being impossibly general and supremely subjective, it is sort of arbitrary. The difference between 28 and 32 is essentially minimal and certainly no more significant than the difference between 28 and 24.
It's not like when we were in our single digits and a change in our age was a major life event. The birthday parties were bigger, the social strata were more clearly defined and a single year of experience usually represented a new grade in school. To wit: only when we are very young do we append our ages with fractions, like "I'm eight and a half." You would think me silly if I described myself as "31 and seven twelfths."
Splitting by decades may be mathematically or aesthetically satisfying, but it is also misleading. It would make more sense to list the phases of life as:
- birth through Age 12 (the childhood phase)
- Age 13 through Age 23 (the education phase)
- Age 24 through Age 35 (the nesting phase)
- Age 36 through death (the slow death phase)
This is just my approximation. It is, of course, colored by the fact that I can't see much farther than five years into my future. But dl004d's suggestion wants for some credibility as well: he has been in his 30s approximately eight months longer than I have and I'll wager that I'm much more neurotic about aging than he is.
Getting back to his larger point, I hope he's right. According to the theory of general relativity, as life gets longer it also goes faster. When you are five, the next year is a fifth of your life; when you are 50, the next year is a 50th of your life -- and therefore one-tenth as long as it was when you were five.
So this next decade could be my last chance to enjoy life before it starts whizzing by me; I've already lost a step in footspeed and my eyesight was never very good to begin with.
- Mark Twain
Happy birthday wishes to noted D.C. blogger dl004d, who turns 30-something today.
He was telling me just yesterday that a person's 30s represent the best decade of their life, because it is the period during which physical wellness, wisdom and means are at their highest cumulative apex.
As his theory goes, a person's 20s are filled with high-minded dreams and energy but lack the money or status necessary to make much use of them. In one's 40s, one is presumably flush with the basic necessities and comforts but is too jaded or tired to truly enjoy them.
I don't know whether or not to believe him. Beyond being impossibly general and supremely subjective, it is sort of arbitrary. The difference between 28 and 32 is essentially minimal and certainly no more significant than the difference between 28 and 24.
It's not like when we were in our single digits and a change in our age was a major life event. The birthday parties were bigger, the social strata were more clearly defined and a single year of experience usually represented a new grade in school. To wit: only when we are very young do we append our ages with fractions, like "I'm eight and a half." You would think me silly if I described myself as "31 and seven twelfths."
Splitting by decades may be mathematically or aesthetically satisfying, but it is also misleading. It would make more sense to list the phases of life as:
- birth through Age 12 (the childhood phase)
- Age 13 through Age 23 (the education phase)
- Age 24 through Age 35 (the nesting phase)
- Age 36 through death (the slow death phase)
This is just my approximation. It is, of course, colored by the fact that I can't see much farther than five years into my future. But dl004d's suggestion wants for some credibility as well: he has been in his 30s approximately eight months longer than I have and I'll wager that I'm much more neurotic about aging than he is.
Getting back to his larger point, I hope he's right. According to the theory of general relativity, as life gets longer it also goes faster. When you are five, the next year is a fifth of your life; when you are 50, the next year is a 50th of your life -- and therefore one-tenth as long as it was when you were five.
So this next decade could be my last chance to enjoy life before it starts whizzing by me; I've already lost a step in footspeed and my eyesight was never very good to begin with.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Age ain't nuthin but a number, but ...
Date: 2008-07-21 07:08 pm (UTC)Re: Age ain't nuthin but a number, but ...
Date: 2008-07-21 08:22 pm (UTC)Re: Age ain't nuthin but a number, but ...
Date: 2008-07-21 08:33 pm (UTC)Re: Age ain't nuthin but a number, but ...
Date: 2008-07-22 11:26 pm (UTC)MOM