You can't be older than dead

I have to credit the title to Bill James, who did not invent serious statistical analysis in baseball but who was the one who made it mainstream. He was discussing how extremely old a particular ballplayer was by listing all the old people he was even older than, but noted that he couldn't be older than one of them because that guy was dead.

I have to admit, after the great trip and birthday weekend that Ronnie gave me, that part of me was let down and thinking, well, "Fuck me, I'm 60. I'm done." But more of me is feeling okay. The cliché is "You're only as old as you feel." Honestly, that's both kind of bullshit and kind of true.

On one hand, you're old as you are is more accurate. At 60 I have some limitations and I don't recover from injuries as fast as I used to, but it's nothing I can't live with. Something always hurts when I get up in the morning. Normally it goes away as soon as I start moving around, but as you get older you start to lose confidence that something that hurts is ever going to get better. But I'm pretty thoughtful about the way I move and treat myself, so I don't often "insult" my musculoskeletal system, as the orthopedists say.

On the other hand, part of it is about how I feel and part of it about how I act. I've never acted my age. I was precocious as a kid, immature as a teen/young adult, and kind of youthful as an older adult. In fact, the best part of turning 60 (aside from the great trip) has been all the people who can't believe that I'm 60. The flip side of this, unfortunately, is that acting young is harder when you're not actually young. I don't think about it much when I'm busy, but there are moment that I suddenly, if briefly, hit a wall.

Aside from good genes, I think I have two things going for me. First, I have, and am truly grateful for, some little voice in my head that is always telling me to push ahead. "Take the stairs, pedal in a higher gear, walk to the supermarket," and all kinds of other exhortations. I try not to sit still. This voice helps keeps me in shape and my weight is the same as it was 25 years ago.

The other thing is more subtle and interesting, I think. I am, both by nature and design, open to as much as I can be, whether it be ideas or foods or people or whatever. I sometimes think the thing that ages you the fastest is closing yourself off to things, deciding "I don't like that" and not trying new stuff. I'm hardly what you'd call adventurous, but if I had to name my favorite characteristic, it would be open-mindedness.

Being open has all sorts of advantages, because it forces you to actually listen when you're conversing with someone, and to consider alternate viewpoints, even when you're pretty sure you have the right answer. I work really hard at taking everything at face value, not prejudging. Aside from everything else, life's just more interesting that way.

I probably have more words of wisdom lying around somewhere, but that's another post.