Battleground of the Advanced

An article by Doris Lessing in the current AARP magazine quotes Bette Davis, the renowned film actress of old, as saying, "Old Age is no place for sissies." This reminded my wife of a cousin who, when she reached that point, said that she was constantly fighting age with boxing gloves. And it is a huge commonplace to hear people who have reached that state complain as if some perverse entity has dumped them into a World War 1 no man's land from which there is no escape.

So far I have not found things to be that way at all.

Maybe I can say that because I am still not quite 80, the number when things really start getting serious. Also, I've always been aware of what I would be getting into should nothing untoward happen for a long time. And none of the numerous faculties that keep us in operation and reasonably content have become drastically wrecked in me as yet. But the most important reason for feeling that I am in no kind of a battleground is obvious.

Unless sociability is the be-all and end-all of your existence, 98 percent, and maybe even more, of the aggravations in the life of humans are caused by others in the species. It follows, then, that, short of being in some sort of solitary confinement, the fewer people that are around you, the better things are, generally speaking.

That's my explanation.