Saturday, July 22, 2017

Age is Relative according to Einstein

It's late and I'm tired so this is being posted without being proofread. If you see a typo or unfinished thought, let me know. 

“Wisdom comes with age,”
At least that’s what they tell you when you’re young
and supposedly foolish.
“Someday you will understand.”
Ha!
Babies seem pretty wise,
And they seem to understand how to get basic needs fulfilled.
They thrive when loved,
If they need something, they ask for it,
They express their emotions without reservation
and get frustrated when they aren’t understood.
Frankly, that sound like a lot of grown-ups I have known
and, these days, like some of our government officials.
So, what isn’t wise about infant behavior
when it is infants innocently behaving
Like, well, infants?

“Age is relative.”
A thought that I thought I understood
Until I researched it.
And got confused by the physics of it,
I loved physics class in high school,
but didn’t understand it then either.
Experiments were fun,
Memorizing formulas and figuring out which formula to apply to a test question,
That was torture and a losing battle.
I get gravity
And force
And other basic physics concepts,
That make perfect sense to me.
I.e., they are obvious.

But Einstein’s theory of relativity
When applied to age
Seems philosophical,
Phlosophy was my college equivalent of high school physics,
 enjoyed the class,
 But didn’t get most of what I read
 And my class discussed.
Age is relative to the person who is doing the aging.
People who are younger than me think I am old.
People older than me think I am young.
Not exactly an exact science, is it.
Einstein said that time slows down if you are moving faster.
I am at an age
Where  time seems to be moving too fast,
And I am moving too slow.
I just can’t see a way
To do everything I want to do
Before I really get old and won’t be able to do it,
And, no, that is not an ADHD time management issue.
I would love to move so fast that time would slow down for me
Like it seemed to do when I was a kid.
But as fast as I am,
I am slower than before,
and age is relative
and time is speeding up

I live in a state where everyone who goes to a bar gets carded,
which at first I found flattering
and then amusing.
I’m not sure anyone who is half my age could look my age.
Not unless they sat outside in sun, rain, wind, and snow 24/7, 365 days a year
From the time they could walk.
It took a lot of years for me to develop these laugh lines, forehead creases,
And thin my hair.
Luckily that came slowly.
Age is relative.

“You are only as old as you feel.”
Some days I feel every second of my age.
Most days I just do what I want to
And don’t think about it.
I don’t decide what I can and can’t do based on my age
I decide based on what I want and need to do.

“Act your age.”
I’ve never seen the point of that
Because I have no clue what it means.
If it means act the way you are expected to act,
I would say
That I should be expected to act
However the hell I want to.
It’s my life.
I’ve made it this far,
So I must be doing something right.