Fear & Aging

As we get older we find we may have fears we did not have in our youth.

Sometimes those fears surprise us. I find none of the things people generally talk about being part of aging I take in stride. There are some other things that the young never think of that do scare me. Certain illness for example. Not because I have read of them or they are a big deal in the media but because I seen them ravage someone close to me. I saw a lot of violent death during my life. That has never held much fear for me in fact much of my life I walked in it's shadow. Maybe I felt like David's line from the Psalm knowing no matter what I would be judged fairly. It isn't death even now but living conditions that scare me. Illness that don't kill but produce constant never ending pain. Seeing someone we looked at as almost being an unstoppable force of nature. Brought to a complete stop by another and perhaps obscure force of nature. The closer they were to us the greater the fear.

I won't list any such illness everyone probably has a few in mind which are on their own personal list. A possible prognosis of one of the items on our own list can be very frightening.

Humor seems to be effective as a shield against anything. My Dad has prostrate cancer and onset of Parkinson's. He is to darn Zen to be the Dali Lama. His I've had a good run. Neither of these will kill me overnight so maybe they will develop a cure. If not I'm 81 now they say either will take at least 10 years to kill me, no one of my ancestors lived to see 78 so I'm already ahead. Plus he stays an Active Mason and active in the Legion. The only thing I am aware of bothers him is loneliness. Something I fell at times but well over half of my adult life I have lived alone so I'm used to it. Actually over half my life period at least 2/3rds of my adult life. Maybe I'm afraid of the opposite sex. Maybe with good reason. There are of course events in my own life but looking at others of both sexes it seems more damage in general has been done via members of whichever sex is opposite to anything else.

On the other hand we are living longer, have new toys ( adults are beginning to use them as much as kids ). The world is truly smaller I know people 12 time zones away will use this and that's as far away as you can get and still be on the planet. Now you can be a world traveller without leaving your seat. In the past books let us hitch a ride today the NET lets us chose the trip for ourselves.

So I leave with this. May you grow older gracefully and enjoy the journey more than you ever dreamed possible