Old age II

Eight months ago I wrote that old age terrifies me. Recently I have been thinking about (old) age again. I was thinking how you don't know how old you will get but can only expect at what age you die, and/or at what age you will become so sick or crippled that it will be almost the same as being dead. How do you adjust your life to match these expectations, and this uncertainty? Do you 'spread out' your wishes for life over the better part of 80 years, expecting to reach that age, or do you assume you will die tomorrow and live on the edge? Or something in between? Which leads to the concrete question of how best to live your life.

To me, living each day as if it is your last seems a bit excessive to say the least. Enjoying yourself as much as possible and not loafing about wasting your best years, on the other hand, seems like a good idea. I feel a strong need to do the things I want to do in life in the coming few years, before I possibly die in a freak accident or whatever. As I wrote before, I am afraid that my body will fail me when I am still fairly young. This may happen, I just don't know. I try to take the best possible care of my body in the time I have available for it (exercising, etc.) but still there is the uncertainty. I realised I am living like a man not expecting to live past thirty. Long-term commitments, especially kids, are out of the question. This spring and summer will be dominated by cool outings and activities. Et cetera... What else can I do?

"I am not afraid of death,
but the prospect of a dull life 
frightens me to death."

I can think of nothing worse than planning to do such and such around age X, or postponing activities time and again... and dying before you can do them. What a shame that would be! As illustrated above, the fear of no longer being able to do things that are on my 'wish list' has a huge influence on me. Without this fear I imagine I would be a very different person, perhaps settling down again and taking it easy - spending most of the summer on the balcony or in the garden with a stack of books and not really going anywhere. The idea alone frightens me.

Life is too fragile to be taken for granted, and too beautiful to waste just sitting around.

Old age

I am terrified by old age. Not myself at some point being old per se, but rather what old people tend to do when they're old. Or actually, what they don't do. They just seem to sit around all day, I don't know, doing crosswords or playing bingo or whatever. And as I'd rather spend a week doing all kinds of cool stuff than going through the same dull routine for a year, sitting around doing practically nothing worthwhile and being useless absolutely terrifies me. In fact I would rather die than become a useless fossil. So I wonder: did these grandpas and grandmas use to think the same thing when they were my age? And if they did, will I eventually become like them because apparently you somehow can't help becoming like that when you're old and unable to move around well and taking dozens of different medications every day? Or is there a different way?

Thriller author Robert Ludlum (who wrote The Bourne Identity among others) published his first novel at age 44 (which reminds me it's never too late to do anything!) and continued to write highly acclaimed novels until he died at age 74. I'm guessing he was on all kinds of medications and didn't move around too well in his last years, similarly impaired because of old age, but this man just continued doing what he loved. He has shown me that it is possible to continue to do worthwhile things when you are old, so I hold on to this thought whenever I shiver at the prospect of becoming a living and breathing but useless fossil some day, doing little or nothing worth remembering in his last years (and keeping people waiting in line in supermarkets time and again because old people seem to do everything in slow motion).

Also, I have read that (very) old people still in (relatively) good health often still work. For example I read about a 90-year-old man who still toiled on his farm every day and seemed twenty years younger at least. Now I don't relish the prospect of working until I die, but such examples have taught me I should keep busy when I get old (which will fortunately take quite a while yet!), also physically.

So when(/if) I get old, don't look for me in a retirement home, playing bingo with my fellow fossils, but writing stories for the world's enjoyment and going on all the cool trips I can still manage.
Hopefully with a cool grandma by my side who will beg for us to go parasailing again! :)