aging

The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time.

Wisdom is the reward for surviving our own stupidity.

How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true; But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

The only consolation, even for someone like him who had been a good man in bed, was sexual peace: the slow, merciful extinction of his venereal appetite. At eighty-one years of age he had enough lucidity to realize that he was attached to this world by a few slender threads that could break painlessly with a simple change in position while he slept, and if he did all he could to keep those threads intact, it was because of his terror of not finding God in the darkness of death.

My hair would continue to gray, and then one day, it would fall out entirely, and then, on a day meaninglessly close to the present one, meaninglessly like the present one, I would disappear from the earth. And all these emotions, all these yearnings, all these data, if that helps to clinch the enormity of what I'm talking about, would be gone. And that's what immortality means. It means selfishness. My generations belief that each one of us matters more than you or anyone else would think.

...her own experience was beginning to tell her that an alert old age can be more keen than the cards.

Looking at death can be life-affirming. It doesn__ need to mire us in thoughts of uselessness, nihilism, self-recrimination, and indifference to the future. Just a reminder that our days are numbered invites us to consider our blessings, strengthen our resolve to carry on, and escalate our compassion for all creatures, great and small.

My skin has the crinkled appearance of wax paper that someone has tried to flatten and reuse. My eyes fail me often__n the darkness, when headlights flash, when rain falls. It is unnerving, this new unreliability in my vision. Perhaps that__ why I find myself looking backward. The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present.

Why do you paint, Nona?"...'I paint first to honor God who paints the sunsets and oceans and human hearts. And second, I paint so I don't get cranky like so many of the old people in this world.

Age has no reality except in the physical world. The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time. Our inner lives are eternal, which is to say that our spirits remain as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom. Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the alpha and omega. An end in itself.

George Macdonald said, 'If you knew what God knows about death you would clap your listless hands', but instead I find old people in North America just buying this whole youth obsession. I think growing older is a wonderful privilege. I want to learn to glorify God in every stage of my life.

When Dr. Jung said we must be able to look forward in old age to the next day and to look forward to the great adventure that is ahead, he was making life__ __mperative to grow_ personal. As long as we are alive, we must be able to dream of the future, of a better world or better ways of life. We are also invited by our greater Self to dream new dreams of creativity and fresh ways of expressing ourselves, as many great artists have into their nineties.

She was an object lesson on the essential luck, whatever hardships may come their way, of those born able to make things.

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.

Without knowing why or how, I found myself in love with this strange Wanderess. Maybe I was just in love with the dream she was selling me: a life of destiny and fate; as my own life up until we met had been so void of enchantment. Those things: mystery, fate, enchantment... they are things that young people offer us as soon as we get close to them. And if we're not careful, we can be seduced by, and drawn back into, the youthful world they preside over.

People undergo several sequential steps in maturing from infancy including childhood, adolescences, young adulthood, middle age, and old age. Each stage presents distinct challenges that require a person to amend how they think and act. The motive for seeking significant change in a person__ manner of perceiving the world and behaving vary. Alteration of person__ mindset can commence with a growing sense of awareness that a person is dissatisfied with an aspect of his or her life, which cause a person consciously to consider amending their lifestyle. The ego might resist change until a person__ level of discomfort becomes unbearable. A person can employ logic to overcome the ego__ defense mechanism and intentionally integrate needed revisions in a person__ obsolete or ineffective beliefs and behavior patterns. The subtle sense that something is amiss in a person__ life can lead to a gradual or quick alteration in a person__ conscious thoughts and outlook on life. Resisting change can prolong unhappiness whereas

Never had anyone said, "Listen. Life is short. Pretend your body is still in its twenties. Jump for the brass ring. Swing for those bleachers. Dive into the deep end of the pool. Act like a fool if you must, but at least *live*.

...I have decided that I shan't sweat the small stuff. Sense and sensibility will, I assume, come in their own time. If indeed they ought to come. And in the meantime, I shall continue to work my ass off... and whenever the opportunity arises... dance my ass off. ... As someone very smart once wrote, 'Those who were seen dancing were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music'.