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On keeping one’s follies intact

The Broadway lyricist E Y Harburg correctly, in my (too rapidly ageing) opinion, observed that even when one’s body is 
‘bent and bowed and cracked, it is too soon to give up the ghost if one’s follies are still intact.’ 
Does this perhaps mean that as we age, we should ensure that we notch up a number of follies, the resolution and eventual correction of which will be as long and as arduous as it is possible to be long and arduous, in order to keep us going; to keep us young? 
Or if not young, then to keep us determined, single-minded, driven and old? 
Is this licence for a deliciously naughty, disreputable old age? 
Or another anxiety to add to the ‘to do list’ as the years pass? 
What about a bucket list of follies? Permission to wear purple and behave badly. Aided and recorded by an overly sensitive finger on the button for taking 'selfies.' In fact, as most selfies are in fact follies, a selfie diary of the elderly years would suffice. Explaining those on social media would keep the brain active for at least another decade. A decade during which more follies could be added to the album. And so life would go on. Decade by folly-creating decade. The secret to a long life solved. I bet that isn’t what E Y Harburg had in mind, though his is a cheap and easy recipe for growing old - both happily and disgracefully. It's a pity perhaps that he is no longer around to promote his follies-for-life approach in a world obsessed with reversing the ageing process.
In the West, huge sums of money are thrown into research which will ultimately benefit only those wealthy enough to afford the manufactured elixirs of youth. We all know that smoking, alcohol, greed and slobbery shorten life expectancy, but it appears that we would rather spend money on potions, pills and surgery, instead of seeking the fresh air, exercise and sensible eating that would lengthen it. I’m not phenomenally wealthy and I don’t trust the botox merchants and don’t have the goods as it were to bother (no striking cheek bones, no sleek Romanesque nose, no meltingly romantic eyes, no classically chiselled chin etc). I’d rather go grey and line gracefully. And I don’t want to live forever. Living as long as possible, as healthily and as happily as possible is another matter. In my opinion, only idiots smoke (and the biggest idiots are asthmatics and diabetics who smoke). I reckon few are aware that for every year of smoking beyond the age of 35, life expectancy is reduced by three months – this means that smoking from 35 to 50 will shorten life by 45 months. That’s a massive 3 years and 9 months. If you smoke to 60, you throw away over 6 years. Do the maths. All that lost folly-creating time: those selfies of your bulging, bathing-suited body, spread-eagled in the paddling pool with the grandchildren; of bad granny behaving despicably and cheating at two in the blow out the birthday cake candles on the count of three; and dressing up as father Christmas for the local toddler group because you’re the oldest granddad around. What a shocking waste.
There are advantages to growing older. Yes. Actually, there are. It’s all about not giving a damn. You pass the age when you worry about your appearance (... much. It’s okay to worry a bit. A bit is normal. Too much and you’ll brim over with regrets, until you realise that the only person worrying about how you look is you.) You also stop worrying about what people think of you. This can however take two very separate routes – the first is passive and happy, and essentially involves you no longer caring: life is too short to get up-tight. Arguing makes you unhappy and compromise is key to everything. The second is to stop worrying about what other people think because you have been alive long enough to know that you are right. This conviction is absolutely concrete and you don’t care who knows. You are belligerent, argumentative and miserable. In essence you are a curmudgeon. A lonely old one. And probably too cross to recognise your follies. Of which there will be many. But probably not of the selfie sort. Those who neither care nor give a damn will be happier, more rounded (because they’ll eat more) and wealthier (see below) people. All the rest will have to face an ever increasing expense as they dye, and plump, and preen, and inject and exercise the husk of their youth into shape.
Another advantage of advancing years was paraphrased beautifully by Peter Ustinov when he said of growing older “I feel I can talk with more authority, especially when I say ‘I don’t know.’” We spend so much of our younger years greedy to know, to explain, to answer the whys that life hurls at us. It makes us feel insecure not to know. The tranquillity of recognising that we don’t know and that it’s okay not to know, is freeing – it’s a release, to do with, what we wish, either explore, if we feel so inclined, or step over, like leaping to the next but one in a line of stepping stones. As long as I can jump to the next but one stone, I’ll be happy to not know. If however, there is too much ‘not knowing’ and the leap stretches too far, old age cloaks itself in a miserable dementing pall. But to despair would be premature, there is soon to be an app which will retrain our brains. We’ll probably have to play it every day. We’ll hang around in the corners of our rest homes, crooked fingers poking at buttons, eyes squinting through thick lenses at flashing screens, as we obsess over yesterday’s score and worry silently that our friend Jack doesn’t seem to have noticed that his scores over the past two weeks have steadily deteriorated and wonder if we should tell someone. 
Far simpler, is the way that dogs age. 
They slow down. They spread. The hairs under their muzzles turn grey. All pretty similar to us, but as long as they can snuggle up somewhere warm and eat regularly they want for little.



We should take a leaf from their book and embrace our ageing, not moan about it. We should rejoice, create follies and enjoy long life and put up with being 'bent and bowed and cracked.' If we don’t, how can we face the millions world-wide who through poverty and lack of access to medicines do not have this privilege - this gift of growing old.


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