💾 Archived View for sdf.org › icemanfr › 2023 › 09.gmi captured on 2023-09-28 at 16:27:29. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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In a few months, I will have lived half a century in my life. Like everyone else in the world, i'm getting older. But I'm not aware of having this age. For me, there are different ages.
The first, of course, is the official age, the one I just told you about. It's a number for me but for recruiters (at least in France), ti seems to be the most important number. If you are young, it's not good because you don't have any experience, even if you've got your own experience apart from your studies. If you are old (for them, it's more than 45 years old), you are not interesting, despite your experience, because you are considered to be slower, to cost much in terms of salary. So I have become old for them and the end of my career is as long as was my «best years». They don't expect me to be more efficient than younger people on many subject with modern tools / informatics. Ok, I admit that I don't want to learn some new skills, for example some ephemere software from Microsoft or Google. And in my head, I'm not that age.
I'm still young but not as young as when I was in my 30s and felt like a teenager. I often feel like a 25 years old man. Half my age, fine ! OK, maybe 30 years old because I have the experience to prevent risks in my job, to anticipate and to plan for the future. I'm always quick to answer, because of the anticipation and I have leaned of my mistakes. Age is your own perception ,based on your feelings, your wishes, your dreams. I know some very old people who sometimes feel themselves like a young boy...not because they are getting senile, of course. Just because we always want to discover new things, we often play games, we often make jokes, .... I don't know, it's a personal feeling, linked to our own childhood. But sometimes, it's not enough...
The third age is the age of your body, with your health. I've never felt the weight of the years before...but this year, it was different. For the first time in my life, I had to stop working for a month. A strange virus (not SARS CoV2) caused some strange symptoms after a blood infection. It has now affected my whole body and I will have to take severe allergic medication for a while. Maybe for the rest of my life, who knows. No more long walks or bicycle rides for the moment. I have to wait and I begin to understand when you feel that your body is like a prison. But it's not much a handicap, compared to disabled people. In my last medical check-ups, my heart was younger than my age and my eyesight is not so bad. So my body was just in line with my official age. I hope most people are like me but I only half believe that. In some countries, it's a miracle to reach 50 years old. With junk food, pesticides, chemical products, viruses caused by human activities,it's not easy to to be in good health. I didn't think about my health before that but it really changed this year. I just hope I don't feel older in other people's eyes.
A fourth is how other people see you. I don't care about that but sometimes, you might be surprised. I'm not very good at guessing the age of people I know. My parents seemed younger than their real age for a long time. That changed when they were in their 80s. I still don't have white hair, just less of it. My wrinkles are rare but I'm used to my face and how it changes. I never ask «how old do you think I am». As I said before, the age is sometimes important for people at work. The age between a man and a woman in a couple are also a taboo in France, where A man can be with a younger woman but not the other way round. I don't really care...OK, my wife is older than me but it was never a problem in our families. There are more problems with racism, hum…
So with all that, the only age I keep in my mind is the second one : How I feel in my head. Now it depends on my physical age but most of the time, I don't think about it. And if I could stay younger in my head until I retire, I'd be happy.
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