I was astounded yesterday, hearing my cousin complain about being and feeling old. Too old, more specifically. Hating the fact that he had aged and was, shockingly, no longer 18. I didn't rightly know what to do with it, the information. Me and Fish did try to counter that view, but it seemed we were in a strange and small minority, so we decided to pack up our views and keep them to ourselves (well, that's not exactly true, I argued a bunch, as is my nature, but overall quite tame).
My cousin is a month younger than me. So he's turning 28 in some 4 months. And he was horrified by it, blasting anyone who celebrates their birthday past a certain age (early 20s) and saying how he's too old to do anything new.
It was shocking to me, as I couldn't feel further from that. While I'm not oblivious to the passage of time, I can't say it bothers me particularly much, either. I've noticed one or two white hairs. Which I suppose is early for some, late for others. He was complaining about these a lot, and I kept thinking... who fucking cares? Who the hell is watching?
I was also reminded of a Lemmy quote I dearly love, which reminds you "if you think you're too old for rock'n'roll, you are."
I don't think I'm too old. And while I notice, obviously, the ways in which my life and the lives of those around me are progressing and changing as we go, I find it rather marvelous. Imagine how dull it'd be if you were doing the same thing for 60 fucking years. Yikes.
It made me think of my best friend's birthday a few years ago. A similar conversation about "getting older", about it not sounding the same when you say "I'm 24" as it did when you said "I'm 18". And sure, it does not, but there's so much you earn between 18 and 24, and then again, between 24 and 27.
It seems to me life is rather short, and I'm sure there's a point where you regret it going by too fast. Perhaps a part of that is inevitable, but I don't think that means satisfaction and meaning with your life are made impossible by that.
When my friend turned 24, I sent her this brilliant quote from Jordan Peterson:
"If you live your life fully, it would be enough. Imagine being constrained by our mortal limitations, but exhausting yourself in the pursuit of your life, and emptying yourself in some consequence, and not hiding your light under a bushel, but letting it shine on a hill. Then, at the end, you could look back and say 'I did this. I lived my life, and that was not only sufficient, but wonderful.'"
I doubt there comes a time when you don't, to some extent, regret old age and dying, but that is unchangeable. Both come regardless. I think a much bigger regret is wasting your time in a place without meaning to you, in a point of your life where, indeed, your potential lies unrealized. It seems to me that's a much greater tragedy of life.
Sure, it's harder to party now as we did a decade ago (not that I was ever much of a partier). But so many wonderful, meaningful, and yes, also tremendously hard things, have come in the last ten years, that they fill me with great awe and enchantment for this life that I am involved with.
To see the people I love grow and mature.
To rise to the challenges and wonderful moments of maturity and growth as they come to me, that doesn't seem a bad task.
Despite all the terrible things currently happening in the world, I find around myself every day so many reasons to be enchanted, and in love with my life and my world at 27. And think, in many ways, what a tremendous growth and development I've seen from, say, 22.