Turning 50
I am turning 50 in July. I have two feelings about this. One is that the milestone has no significance and I am still the same young person as always. The other feeling is that I am now shockingly, catastrophically old, with little time left to do things. I think these feelings are normal and consistent. If I think I’m 30 years old in my head, but also recall that I’m really 50, then the 30-year-old me is going to say, “Hey, you’re old now!” because that is what a 30-year-old would think. Young me is making fun of actual me.
I suppose in theory this phenomenon could operate in the other direction, but probably never does. If my brain thought it was 80, then it might feel old but regard actual me as young. Then I would go around thinking, “Sure is nice to be able to walk and ride a bicycle!” (I think young me is making fun of old me again, but not entirely clear.) Anyway, I have not been 80 yet, so it is more natural to think about how someone I can remember, namely, 30-year-old me, would think about 50-year-old me.
Sometimes people say that so-and-so is an “old soul,” but I have never liked that phrase. Does anybody want to be an “old soul”? To judge by the way most people talk, I think not. Some people probably use the phrase as a compliment, with the idea that the person is “soulful” or deep or complex. But whenever I hear it, I feel like the person on the receiving end of the remark has just been told that their life energy burned out, like an expended star. Sorry, nothing left of you but your flickering old soul. You’re just an ol’ sol, when you should be a child of ten. It’s the kid who won’t get off the porch or the sleeping cat who gets told they are an “old soul.”
The opposite of being an “old soul” is being “young at heart.” I don’t know that anyone wants to be young at heart either, unless they are 80 years old, but I wouldn’t know what that’s like. If you are “young at heart,” then you are definitely old. But if you have to choose between “old soul” and “young at heart,” then I would definitely choose “young at heart” because that at least implies that you’re kind of fun in spite of it all. IRL, I can’t remember having been called either one of these things, so maybe my age and disposition are not so dramatically imbalanced after all. In other words, I have the illusion that my mind and soul are cruising along in unchanging youngness, but I can’t see them in any tangible way, and in reality they are aging at exactly the same rate as everything else!
Remember that scene in “A Beautiful Mind” when John Nash (Russell Crowe) realizes that he is hallucinating or schizophrenic or whatever? He realizes that people in his hallucinations never get older, which means that they can’t be real.1 Having kids is like that, except that instead of realizing that my hallucinated children never get any older, I realize that my hallucinated self is not eternally young. I know I am getting older because the kids show me what it means to think like a young person. It’s crazy! I am sure I acted like them when I was their age and I am sure that I do not act that way now. That means that I am at least 30, not 13 or 15. If I knew anyone who is 30, I would probably also be able to conclude that I am not 30 either, although sometimes the old-soul ones will trick you.
Here is the scene from A Beautiful Mind.