On 29/03/17 18:36, Johnny B Good wrote:


Its a trait that people seem to apply to themselves when over a "certain
age" (which is slightly woolly in its definition but is typically 75+).
Ask a question "how old are you?" and you will be told how old they will
be next birthday.

Our attitude to forthcoming birthdays keeps changing as we get older.
Initially, it's one of impatience to reach the early milestones of
maturity such as 5, 13, 18 and 20 or 21. Thereafter, we're old enough to
see the next milestones, 30th and successive decadal birthdays more as
reminders of our own mortality and impending demise.

Yes, though I would say that from 20s to 50ish it more a case of
realising "we have left undone those things we ought to have done".



Eventually, once we've come to accept the inevitability of our
mortality, typically from age 50 onwards to, as you posited, 75+, our
next birthday becomes more and more a matter of 'defiance', hence the
response to that question tending to be couched once again in terms of
our age at next birthday.



--
djc

(–€Ì¿Ä¹Ì¯–€Ì¿ Ì¿)
No low-hanging fruit, just a lot of small berries up a tall tree.