or: The Three Surprises of My Age

It’s not often that I think about my age though over the past couple of weeks, I have been reminded of it a few times.

I don’t think about it usually because I have no need to. I have said since I was about three years old that I was going to live until I’m 104 so I have more than half my life still ahead of me (and a cracker of a 52nd birthday to plan!).

When I am reminded of my age, my first reaction is generally surprise since it’s normally someone younger than me that is asking and surprise seems to be their reaction too. It’s a joint surprise.

My surprise comes partly from someone actually asking it in the first place, then a secondary surprise of “wow, that is quite a bit older than this person that’s asking me though I feel about their age!” and sometimes a third surprise of “I have a lot to get done still and perhaps I need to plan a bit more or take a deep breath and just get on with it.”

My first surprise is because it’s not often anyone asks ages anymore. It’s usually on forms that I have to complete and even then, it’s just my birthday I have to fill in. When this is the case, none of the other surprises follow. It’s just when I have to write my actual age.

My second surprise comes from me just not feeling as old as I think those that are asking me think I should feel based on the number. I remember when my parents were my age and for sure, that seemed old then!  

This was  further highlighted when one of the guys I was recently studying with asked me my age and then said “That’s the same age as my Mum and you’re way more together than she is!” I have not thought of myself as either “together” or “not together”. I have hit all the milestones expected of me – moved out of home, university, interstate moves, career, house purchase, marriage – then a few that probably weren’t expected – overseas relocation, no kids (though not for lack of trying and a big nod to science for the assistance though unsuccessful in these instances), fur kids, divorce, buying my own place overseas (though it’s not really overseas now if that’s where I live I guess), another country move and then back again for work, bucketloads of travel, extended sabbatical, scuba diving – so “together” or “not together” seems fairly arbitrary.

Everyone has variations of these experiences and how we all react to our own is what makes us, us.

I don’t think it has to do with age. It has to do with your underlying life philosophy, your attitude to it and how you want to live. Age is how many years you’ve had to fit these experiences into. This leads onto my third surprise.

My third surprise comes from the feeling of not having enough time to learn all the things I want to know and to experience all the things I want to experience. What makes this one particularly challenging is the more I learn and travel, the more I realize there is to learn and to see and do.

By default, this one continues to grow.

You may remember from one of my earlier posts that while I was in South Africa a couple of years ago, I was pondering if seagulls from all around the world could understand each other if one accidentally became lost. I know the answer to that now yet it raises other questions such as what happens with other bird species? What about fish? Does each species have its own language or can they communicate with each other? Or is it all body language? And dolphins? And whales? How do they learn their language if some species only ever see each other to mate (I’m thinking particularly of the whale shark with this one but it’s likely to be other animals too).

When I have the answers to these, I’m sure it’s going to lead to further questions.

The thing is, these are only some of the things I want to know. These are only the things that have come about from thinking about how a lost seagull can communicate with its long-lost relatives.

There are things around the environment and climate change I’d like more information about, how to organise some environmental campaigns and link those to diving, how to set up another business that links all of these things together, how to use Facebook more effectively (for diving / environmental initiatives / whatever else I happen to come up with) or what is likely to be the next thing so I can start it early and get a bit ahead with the search results…. and you get the idea.

Then there are the things around technology such as blockchain, bitcoins, AI, VR, the ethical and emotional impacts on humans of all these things and what it could lead to.

The nature questions will never stop and then how these link to the technology ones and how can one be used to benefit the other…

There is also a heap of things in history (including mythology of various cultures) I’d like to understand more about and how we are repeating these patterns from tyrant leaders over the centuries to how communities are organised effectively and what makes one successful compared to another.

I’d also like to know more about Chinese medicine as some of this is still using ingredients from animals on endangered species lists or animals that will soon be there if something isn’t done soon. Not all of these ingredients are effective so what can be done to eliminate their use for an alternative (a bit like how manta ray gills became popular yet aren’t effective according to various scientific research papers yet what they are supposedly used for does have effective Chinese medicine alternatives so these should be advertised more. Interestingly, it’s only in the last 10 years or so that manta ray gills have been used – it is not traditional medicine at all!)

On the Western medicine side, I’d like to know why lifesaving medicines seem to increase in price at a faster rate than most widely used medicines even if the ingredients aren’t that difficult to source and / or the process to make the drug hasn’t changed. How can costs be kept down to help those who need these medicines and are unlikely to be able to work in the short to medium-term.

How can we rid the world of measles (and various other diseases) when there seems to be so many people who are anti-vaccination. What are the other alternatives? What is stopping these ones from working now?

Since a woman is born with all her eggs, would it be better to take some of these while she is a newborn herself. This obviously raises more questions including a lot of ethical ones as well as what is the optimum age for an egg. I’ve done no research into this at this stage aside from thinking that it is an interesting albeit a controversial idea.

Yes, there is even more than this. These are some of my non-fiction type ponderings. I haven’t even touched on all my questions about people and the way the mind and body works, language is formed, personalities, motivation, and how we communicate and how to do this more effectively. Or space travel and what is out there. Or why humans seem to need to keep fighting and how can we stop wars. Or capitalism and consumerism – I have a lot of questions about these that link to living simply and small houses and volunteering. Or aging and how we can help single people in particular continue to live alone as they age and how will their doctors know when their thoughts are really early indicators of some form of dementia rather than their usual way of thinking (I’m sure there can be an app for this in the future!).

My creative ones are a whole other story too!

This is one of the reasons I read, I listen to everyones’ stories since I never know what they may know that could tap into any of this, and I travel.

I accept that I am getting older.

I am not ready to accept that I will never know all the things I want to know. To look at the world and ask questions to understand it and make it better is a good thing to be doing no matter what my age is and I’m not going to give up just because the scale of my lack of knowledge can be overwhelming and frustrating at times.

I look at it instead as I never have a reason to be bored. There is always something to learn and places I can go to do this.

It’s quite exciting.

It’s also why sometimes I stop and like to be on, in or near the ocean.

It brings peace, clarity, focus and rest.

Also a lot of fish but that’s just the areas I like to dive in.

The other challenge is when to stop collecting information and start acting on what I already know.

Like with most things, baby steps…

 

* Thanks to Cut Copy for the title to this post.