Saturday, November 13, 2010

a study in contrasts

When I turn 60...

No. I cannot make such claims, because I will not live to see 60. I shall will myself to die; 59 is too old, even. It is the age of mid-life crises, pot bellies, gastrointestinal upheaval and bad flatulence, monstrously loud sneezing, heart disease, and the start of dreadful hospital visits. It is mostly a terrible time to be alive.

The only other terrible time to be alive is between the age of 80 and death (which is really ageless), because you have no quality of life to speak of. Your friends are dead, you are kept on the life-support of the healthcare system, you can't see or hear or speak properly to the people you love, walking to the toilet feels like a marathon, and the loud sneezing and uncomfortable gastrointestinal problems of the middle ages still remain.

Technology will be so new, so complicated, that it becomes conceptually inaccessible. You cannot grasp the fundamental idea behind new-fangled gadgets — it's almost as if the whole world has learnt a new language. (It goes deeper — the world has began to live differently.)

You cannot make sense of this new reality, which has arrived only gradually and surreptitiously, creeping up day by day. Your existence is fragmented and utterly divorced from everything else. In a sense, you have already died.

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