Age as a mental illness.

Some of us loose our patience when in close contact with age related ‘peculiar behaviors’.

There are a few ‘real’ facts about this phenomenon and I’m going to list them before letting you in on what I feel about this whole thing.

We live way longer than our parents and grand parents. Statistically, of course.
Which means that everybody gets a fair chance at reaching well into their 80-ies, something which was ‘available’ only to those smart enough to navigate around the perils of life, rich enough to hover over them or both at the same time.
Most of the run-of-the-mill-s and the outright dumb-asses used to die long before that.

Brain is both an organ and a muscle. Like any other organ, it deteriorates with age. Like any other muscle, if trained properly, it keeps for longer.

People are lazy. Most of them don’t like to compete on their own. And, even more importantly, most of them stop training after reaching the top. Even a relative one.

Simplistically, one could say age is an opportunity each of us has to demonstrate their true nature.
Both the quality of our ‘natural endowment’ and how well each of us has treated/trained theirs.

A more comprehensive approach suggests that age might be something a little more complicated than that.

The present is a combination between whatever resources were at the disposal of our ancestors and the accumulated ‘consequences’ of our ancestors living in those conditions. Basically, a combination between nature and human decision making.

We live today in the world we inherited from our parents and our children will live in the world we’ll bequest upon them.

Yep, only living longer also means having to retire at some point.
It means having to give up calling the shots.

And this is the real litmus test.
How one behaves after they realize they can no longer call the shots but are not yet ready to die and how one behaves after being called to call the shots yet still having to care for the former ‘bosses’.

This is when people have to face the consequences of how they trained their brains during their life times.
This is the moment when people meet the real results of how they had interacted. Among themselves and with their children.
This is the moment when people meet the consequences of their former choices.

And, also, this is the moment when the children have the opportunity to prove themselves.

In a nutshell, one may say that humankind is like wine.
Both depend very much on terroir, are the results of collective efforts and age demonstrates their true nature.

Or, one could say that age is more of a social disease than a mental illness.