A long time ago, relatively speaking, when I was in my 20′s, I took a good long look at old people and thought about what they meant when they spoke of maturity.
I realized that maturity generally means accepting the physical changes that come with life, and learning to sit back and let the younger generation take over while you slowly succumb to the pains, aches, illnesses and disabilities of old age. It sure looked like bullshit to me and I wanted none of it.
To this day I have never accepted maturity. My body has certainly aged, and acquired some of those creaks and wrinkles and so forth, but that’s gonna happen. The difference is that I don’t accept an aging body as being what I am. I am not mature. Looks like I never will be, either.
A couple weeks ago I checked in at the clinic with some minor problems and also had a little skin blemish looked at and the doctor started going on about cancer. Which it isn’t, but anyway I told her that I don’t believe in cancer. She clearly thought I was either slightly nuts or getting senile, but I don’t. Never have. I think most people who get cancer believe in it. I do know that a lot of illness is brought on entirely by mental attitude and nothing else, that we can come down with the flu or a cold because we allowed something to get to us and bring us down mentally. I’ve warded off the onset of a bug many times by simply sitting down and figuring out what was bothering me, and dealing with it.
I believe in being healthy. So I am. I believe that I will wake up in the morning, and so I do. I believe that whatever difficulty I face in life, I will overcome it, and I’ve overcome some of the most horrendous crap you could imagine and I’m still here and feeling pretty fine.
Life is not fair. Some of us have it soft all our lives but most of us don’t. Most of us beat our way through life and get beat up in the process until finally we’re all beat down and ready to go, looking forward to it even. But life isn’t unfair either and the only reason we get beat down is because we don’t keep standing up. Life is funny. Literally, life is a comedy, there’s humor everywhere, even in the darkest moments and the saddest things – although I do freely admit that there’s a hell of a lot less laughs in that particular department. But maybe that’s the thing of it for me. I always end up laughing at what hurt me the most.
I am a philosophical type, ain’t I.
You need will power in life, both of us seem quite strong in that area. I force myself to do some major exercise 5 times a week, running, gym or just the garage machine. (and resist CHEESE, although that’s harder) Running round here in nice weather is enojoyable but the other two are a total chore. Almost never seem to get colds, not sure I have ever had flue, not the major symptoms people complain of anyway.
Beats me why some give up so easily and they don’t grasp that doing so is the worst thing for them. Had depression for a long time decades back and forced myself to keep going to work. In the end I junked all the pills and swear I didn’t sleep for a year but dependency of any sort is lunacy.
Yes when your neck deep in manure and things are lookin grim , you can always find humor in it. Personally speaking when the manure hits the propellar thats when i’m at my best. And i always think..tommorow will be better. And ya know what? it usually is !
As you know, Mr. AOW is seriously disabled physically. That said, the recovery that he has achieved is due to (1) unrelenting hard work with therapy, his own and what the PT folks suggested and (2) his mind has stayed young.
I believe that one of the secrets is aging well is having a good sense of humor. I need to work more on cultivating my sense of humor, I think.
I am a philosophical type, too.
That’s one more reason to read your articles, BS.
You see Real World in a poetic / philosophical sight.
AOW, I hope the jokes I left on his blog gave him a laugh. I don’t know which way his sense of humor runs.
Well, Ernesto, keep reading. I always enjoy hearing from you.