ARE WE OLD?

The question I ask myself is: Are we old? Are we so old that we are no longer able to do all the things we have done in the last fifteen years?
The two very French expressions: 'une vielle dame' ( that old lady) and 'il est plus vieux que sa femme' (he's older than his wife) stick in our minds, even if in my case they don't apply.

And now I refuse to accept other expressions even though they are part of our dear language: 'vieux jours, ( old days) vieillesse, (old age)  faire des économies pour ses vieux jours'( economize fir his old days) .
Someone told me that an old man is an old man who has been around for a long time. Like the good old days or an old friend. But to be old is also to be something deteriorated, used, that has been used a lot, like an old pair of shoes.

And to say that an old person carries a somewhat pejorative or condescending nuance.
Maybe one day someone will come to take care of these two little old people. Positively, it will be hard to say that he is an old-timer.
Yesterday, I heard a friend say that another one has become so old that he hardly recognized him. I don't look forward to the day when someone wants to get rid of me like an old man.

And now let's go and counteract all the nasty things that have been said about the word old, namely to oppose so much slander that we must not pay any more attention to.

For me, being old means being wise. I remember when I was twenty, I wanted to be forty because I was told that wisdom comes with age. At forty, I asked: wisdom where are you? She answered: wait until you are sixty. I did the same at sixty and today, at seventy-five, I am still looking for it and I think I am getting closer.

If the young people of today could respect the old, learn from them who have lived what they have not yet experienced, perhaps we will move in a better direction.

The fact remains that all those old people who preceded us have left behind so much writing and knowledge that we benefit from today. Why not give them the credit they deserve. Whether it is Aristotle or Spinoza, Einstein or Martin Luther King Jr., these old men have become idols for today's youth who have found inspiration in them.

I am not referring to the phase of breathing in which air enters the lungs. No, I am referring to the creative impulse, that state of enlightenment under the influence of which it is possible to receive revelations and stimuli.

It is certainly thanks to these old men who have taught us so much that we are so brilliant that we are constantly producing so many new inventions. Unfortunately, we forget them, just as we, the old ones of today, will be forgotten.