The obsession with agelessness puts pressure on us to look and act forever young. But it’s far more liberating to be old and cheerfully weary, says Viv Groskop
The obsession with agelessness puts pressure on us to look and act forever young. But it’s far more liberating to be old and cheerfully wearyho wants to be ageless? Not me. I am old. Hear me creak. To be old and to be able to participate, even if with increasing cynicism and decrepitude, in the unpredictable verb of “ageing” is surely a blessing. It is a gift famously more attractive than the perennially unpopular alternative.
The thing is, we are monumentally spoilt, even with the latest alarming news of the UK’s stagnant life expectancy, which is, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Because only 2,000 years ago, it was completely normal to expect to die a horrible death between the age of 20 and 35. Old people were outliers.
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