Re: Wake of the Flood

I vastly prefer being older - at least mentally. Obviously, I wish I was still as whippet-thin as I was when I was as a youth and in my twenties; but actually I seemed to get every cold and illness under the sun when I was young, so I'm probably healthier now. But when I was young, I didn't know myself, and thus I was constantly wasting time pursuing projects that I would either never see through to the end, or which would provide me with little satisfaction even if I did see them through. I now know exactly what I should have done when I was young; and instead I wasted so much time through not knowing my own personality and true goals. And I know far more now than I did before; and I find that I am vastly more confident and independent than I was when I was younger. I used to care what others thought; now, I couldn't care less. So if it wasn't for the general process of physical aging, I think being older is by far preferable to being young. I would quite like to live to be a hundred. My male relatives have generally enjoyed quite excellent longevity. My father was as old as Methuselah when he died. He became frail, but was pretty healthy otherwise until the last moment. But - there are no guarantees. I could have a sudden heart attack two weeks after claiming my bus pass. I suppose the only moral, given that we waste so much of our lives, is to decide what one really wants to do with the remainder of one's life - and get on with it, and not waste any further time.