The secret of old age…
It's all in the mind
Here’s a secret about old age, something that no young person will ever experience—the feeling of looking 72 but feeling 36. You’ve got to age to know what that’s truly like. You’ve got to look in that store window as you walk by and think ‘who’s that old guy?’ Only to realize it’s you!
My God, is it really you? It is. But the problem and one of the weirdest things about growing old (if you’re lucky enough to be afforded that privilege) is that, in many cases, you won’t feel 72. I know I don’t. I feel like my mind stopped aging when I turned 36. I was married, I had two kids and a career and I’m more or less the same guy today EXCEPT for a thousand physical ailments—my wobbly right knee, my slightly larger middle, and the gray hairs in my eyebrows. I can’t count my bald head because I was bald when I was 36!
Some call this the “inside-outside” effect and I think that’s a good way of describing it. It’s one of the most disconcerting things about aging, as George Harrison (yes THAT George Harrison) found out when he turned 57.
I found this video clip of his where he says it takes no time at all really to go from 17 to 57. “Forty years goes by just like that,” he says, snapping his fingers. “Now I understand 90 year olds who feel like teenagers because nothing changes. It’s just the body that changes.” The spirit of your younger self, he says, is still in that vessel.
But you won’t understand what George is talking about until you yourself grow old. Then you’ll understand. You know that old guy who you think looks ridiculous when he gets up to dance to one of those early Beatles songs like “I’m Happy Just to Dance with You” (the one with George on the vocals). He doesn’t think he looks ridiculous as he shouts out the words because, in his mind, he’s still at that high school dance, looking just as cool as Mr. Harrison looks in the photo above when he was 17 (and already playing with John and Paul BTW).
So true. Sigh