Get Ready To Grow Old

BENGALURU: This past week, a video of Mick Jagger went viral. The 22-second video showed the rockstar dancing to The Wombats’ song, Techno Fan, without missing a beat. Of course, what sent his fans and the internet on a tizzy is the fact that the young at 75 Jagger was dancing that way a month after a heart valve replacement surgery. Wonders may never cease when it comes to Jagger but in a world that is obsessed with staying young forever, the musician’s story reaffirms the saying that ‘age is just a number’. The world of celebrities is filled with examples such as these. Former American president Jimmy Carter, 92, who had a hip replacement surgery recently after a fall is ready to teach at Sunday school, and there’s Madonna who at 60 has announced another album. People like Jagger, Madonna and Carter prove that growing old doesn’t necessarily mean that you have reached the end of the road. You can still sing, dance and be merry. While such stories with positive spins about age are good, the truth is that the ‘idea of oldness’ is not pretty in one’s head. Nor are most of us wealthy and cushioned by money like celebrities who can afford a nip here and a tuck there. There’s youth. And then there’s old age. And in between these two phases, lies a grey area where life lulls you into believing that old age somehow will leave you untouched. “Age is an important number, but it can also be deceiving. After 40, most people say they feel younger than their years, some lie about their age, and many attempt to hide the signs of growing old,” reads the blurb on Dr Alan Castell’s book, Better with Age: The Psychology of Successful Aging. In his […]

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