My favourite saying in the world is, “my best years are ahead of me.” I’m 23. Strong. Independent. Opposite of ‘languishing’. Floating about – as all twenty-somethings do. Wiling away my time in the ‘wings’ of ‘this great play’. The play is titled ‘Life’. Credited to ‘God’. Some say he didn’t actually write it. They say he had a ‘ghostwriter’. Ha. I don’t believe in ghosts. Apparently God and J.D. Salinger are friends. They both live in exile. No one knows what either looks like. Although God did have a famous son once. He was an author too. Died tragically of course, as all good writers do. David Foster Wallace was a friend of his. As was Kurt Vonnegut. So it goes.

I just read this story on the local newspaper resource, The Age Dot Com, about ‘our best years being ahead of us’.

“A study of US super-centenarians aged 110-119 found that about 40 per cent needed little assistance or were independent, ‘suggesting that super-centenarians are not more disabled than are people aged 92 years’.”

“They say that if current trends continue, more than half the babies born since 2000 in wealthy nations such as Australia will celebrate their 100th birthdays.”

Compare me as an infant to, say, a 58 year old. Starting my life, fresh out of the proverbial womb, with no teeth and difficulties ‘moving my bowels’. (Sorry dad. I know 58 year olds rarely have either of those things. It was a ‘metaphor’ to help the story ‘move forward’.) Now jump 23 years ahead and I’m 81. That’s a good chunk of life right there. That’s my entire life span so far. What will I want to achieve in those years? Will I print off a quote on my hologram computer to hang above my bed reading, “Just enjoy life”?

Maybe most of it will be spent sleeping. The dream world will be the only place left to explore. What a great life this is. Are you having fun? Isn’t this absurd!?

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! …

10/2/09 -- New York -- 0 Comments