Imagine being asked by a colleague, "How old do you feel?"
I was. It was the end of a long morning. I wanted to get home. I was fairly fed up - all the reasons for not working were clamouring for space inside my head while being suppressed with fluctuating forcefulness by a timorous voice of reason that was reminding me that work means money and money means ... well, almost everything.
The colleague is someone I know reasonably well - well enough to ask to provide a reference for other jobs, not well enough to know the name of her husband, or where she had just been on holiday, or indeed why she might want to know if I was feeling as decrepit as I probably looked.
There appeared to be several ways of answering - from the self destructive "Not as old as you!" to the cowardly "Ooh, I don't know - older than yesterday." While the self-destructive option would have had the result of never working for her again, the voice of reason won and instead I said "Not as old as the person who looks back at me in the mirror." Which is true. Every day I glimpse this old, greying and when-did-I-ever-get-to-be-that-shape person. Lumpy, lined and frequently limping - if it's not sore feet, it's the hip. Or back. Or all four at once. I guess it's good that this apparition is shocking. And that I don't feel older than it. That would be terrible! Anyway, it clearly wasn't the answer my colleague had expected. She had been fishing - not for my opinion but for reflected questioning: clearly, she wanted to tell me just how old her morning had made her feel and how fast she felt her years were passing.
Time passes. We age. The past lengthens behind us and our futures grow shorter. I like the idea that time may not be linear, or constant. Physicists currently appear to like that idea too. But we will have to wait for the passing of conventional time in order to discover the real direction and plasticity of time. I digress - feeling old is a function of passing time and growing up is determined by how we change and adapt our lives over that time. Sometimes we perceive that time passes too quickly - perhaps this coincides with growing up too fast. Consider dogs - they have to cram a whole lifetime into just a few years. They grow up and age very fast.
Bertie Baggins has just turned one.
Before you ask, no - we did not celebrate his birthday. He's a dog. Dogs don't need cakes and parcels and songs. It seems no time at all since he was a puppy - an accident-prone, sharp-toothed, yellow baby of endless energy and a single-minded intent to bother his big, black uncle. A particular bother to his uncle's soft chewy ears.
He has grown up. At one, he is calm. Attentive without being a nuisance. And a good companion. To all except out dog-despising postman. Four-legged-friend who has just turned four has become the elderly statesman of the pair. But he lapses into frantic catch-me-if-you-can chases, usually early in the morning, often when he senses that food might come between him and Bertie Baggins and when he hears the postman's van arrive at the gate. We enjoyed them as puppies, but we continue to enjoy their growing older together.
Children grow up too. Some faster than others. Littlest grows slowly. And endearingly ... but then, I am biased.
She is naive and credulous believing only this evening (until we disillusioned her) that in a few weeks time we will be visiting a tower built entirely of pizza boxes that someone knocked about a bit so that it grew crooked and 'leans'. It's even in a place with a name very like that of her favourite supper.
She thinks she's won a sports match when in fact her team - christened the "Dream team" by her sports teacher - has been trounced.
And when asked if she knew how the rest of her class had done in their recent exams she replied "Why on earth would I be interested in what anyone else got?"
Sadly we live in a competitive world. Sadly children of necessity will become aware of this. It is part of growing up. But it doesn't have to happen too fast. Better a slowly creeping tide of competitive awareness than a tsunami of competition thrust upon them.
I was. It was the end of a long morning. I wanted to get home. I was fairly fed up - all the reasons for not working were clamouring for space inside my head while being suppressed with fluctuating forcefulness by a timorous voice of reason that was reminding me that work means money and money means ... well, almost everything.
The colleague is someone I know reasonably well - well enough to ask to provide a reference for other jobs, not well enough to know the name of her husband, or where she had just been on holiday, or indeed why she might want to know if I was feeling as decrepit as I probably looked.
There appeared to be several ways of answering - from the self destructive "Not as old as you!" to the cowardly "Ooh, I don't know - older than yesterday." While the self-destructive option would have had the result of never working for her again, the voice of reason won and instead I said "Not as old as the person who looks back at me in the mirror." Which is true. Every day I glimpse this old, greying and when-did-I-ever-get-to-be-that-shape person. Lumpy, lined and frequently limping - if it's not sore feet, it's the hip. Or back. Or all four at once. I guess it's good that this apparition is shocking. And that I don't feel older than it. That would be terrible! Anyway, it clearly wasn't the answer my colleague had expected. She had been fishing - not for my opinion but for reflected questioning: clearly, she wanted to tell me just how old her morning had made her feel and how fast she felt her years were passing.
Time passes. We age. The past lengthens behind us and our futures grow shorter. I like the idea that time may not be linear, or constant. Physicists currently appear to like that idea too. But we will have to wait for the passing of conventional time in order to discover the real direction and plasticity of time. I digress - feeling old is a function of passing time and growing up is determined by how we change and adapt our lives over that time. Sometimes we perceive that time passes too quickly - perhaps this coincides with growing up too fast. Consider dogs - they have to cram a whole lifetime into just a few years. They grow up and age very fast.
Bertie Baggins has just turned one.
Before you ask, no - we did not celebrate his birthday. He's a dog. Dogs don't need cakes and parcels and songs. It seems no time at all since he was a puppy - an accident-prone, sharp-toothed, yellow baby of endless energy and a single-minded intent to bother his big, black uncle. A particular bother to his uncle's soft chewy ears.
He has grown up. At one, he is calm. Attentive without being a nuisance. And a good companion. To all except out dog-despising postman. Four-legged-friend who has just turned four has become the elderly statesman of the pair. But he lapses into frantic catch-me-if-you-can chases, usually early in the morning, often when he senses that food might come between him and Bertie Baggins and when he hears the postman's van arrive at the gate. We enjoyed them as puppies, but we continue to enjoy their growing older together.
Children grow up too. Some faster than others. Littlest grows slowly. And endearingly ... but then, I am biased.
She is naive and credulous believing only this evening (until we disillusioned her) that in a few weeks time we will be visiting a tower built entirely of pizza boxes that someone knocked about a bit so that it grew crooked and 'leans'. It's even in a place with a name very like that of her favourite supper.
She thinks she's won a sports match when in fact her team - christened the "Dream team" by her sports teacher - has been trounced.
And when asked if she knew how the rest of her class had done in their recent exams she replied "Why on earth would I be interested in what anyone else got?"
Sadly we live in a competitive world. Sadly children of necessity will become aware of this. It is part of growing up. But it doesn't have to happen too fast. Better a slowly creeping tide of competitive awareness than a tsunami of competition thrust upon them.
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