whoa - slow down!

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Added: Fri Nov 30th 10:59am
Posted in: Lifelong Learning

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when I was much younger, an older woman, the mother of a friend, said, "John, there is a 45 year old woman trapped in this 75 year old body." I gave the polite and perfunctory nod and agreed that was true although privately I dismissed it... after all, if you are 70 or 75 then that is what you are and so be it.... but as I grew older something strange started happening... my body started out-aging my mind... when I turned 50 I still felt and thought like someone younger - perhaps 35 or 40... when I finally adjusted to the fact of being 60, I definitely felt younger - more like closing in on 50... it goes without saying now that although past the 70 year mark, my mind is still lagging behind, somewhere around 55, maybe 60 - 65 on a bad day...

the other phenomena associated with this mind/body dichotomy is a sense of accelerated time... I think of those milestone birthdays that rolled around every ten years of my life, and I can remember how unbearably long it took to reach 10 and 20... perhaps because I couldn't wait to become a teen, or turn 16 so I could drive, or turn 18 so I could drink (18 years old for beer in West Virginia) and then turning 21 so I could vote... however, when I reached 30 I suddenly sensed it didn't take quite as long to get there as it did to reach 20... and every decade thereafter, the time to reach that next milestone seemed shorter and shorter... it seems this foolishly aging body of mine thinks it's in race to beat my mind to the finish line... then again, maybe when I was younger I felt I didn't have enough time to accomplish all that was on my agenda, but as I grow older I feel I don't have enough time to savor all that life has to offer.....

I wonder what Einstein would think about all this....

(this blog is one of many which can be found at: www.latenightmusings.com)