I Am Now Ancient
Today is my birthday. Hooray! In fact, today I am 40 years old, with very strong emphasis on the word ‘old’. Oddly, I don’t feel any more elderly or infirm than I did yesterday or, in fact, twenty years ago. I suspect I shall be saying much the same thing when I’m seventy.
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Happy Birthday. I will soon be 40 too. I scares me to think that my father had a 22 year old when he was 40. Or that Lennon was shot dead at 40.
On the science in America post: If you haven’t read it, you should read Feyerabend’s Against Method. He recommends we teach witchcraft. His reasons are good.
Happy birthday from across the miles, Mr Jordan!
Happy birthday Nick. Have a good one!
Thanks very much, all of you.
Eee! Happy (belated) Birthday! May the next 40 years be absolutely marvellous!
Happy birthday Nick. Just out of interest, what would you say is your default age – the one you feel like you haven’t got any older since? Mine’s probably about 20 (I’m 29.)
My default age is probably around the same as yours – 20 or 21. It’s a good age to be, I think. Old enough not to be too stupid and young enough not to be too sensible.
Actually the default age for most men is 3-1/2. You do get a few who only manage to reach 2-1/2 and they have a tendency to throw their toys out of the pram, but 3-1/2 is all right, because the ones who do manage to reach 6 have a tendency to be rather boring.
This is no mere hypothesis. It is a proper theory, worked out from 64 years of empirical evidence.
Hi Nick,
Congratulations on making it to the big 40. I’ve clocked up 58 years, still feel inside that I’m 21, though a lot wiser, but externally I’m starting to look my years. Oh well, hope I’ve got another 40 to go.