Turning sixty

Okay, so my 60th birthday is next year, but as my pedantic oldest son, Ben, pointed out. This is my sixtieth year. Tant pis!

Actually, I missed being fifty. I was 51 for two years. Don't ask. I just kept telling people I was 51 - perhaps being born in '51 caused a year long lapsus - was pleased as punch to realise I wasn't 52 and enjoyed being 51 second time round.

Of course, like most of us I guess, chronological age is seperate from how old we feel or sense ourselves to be. In dreams and day to day living, I feel and think of myself as younger - late 40s say - even though my body tells me otherwise. Our internal perception of age is at variance with chronological time.

The Daily Galaxy recently intoned that the first person who will live a thousand years is already born.

In a very real sense, my generation is one of the last generations of homo sapiens. By 2200, if not before, homo sapiens plus will be replacing the older species. Sometimes I get the impression this shift is already taking place.

I'll be happy to make three score years and ten. It has served our species well enough for some ten millenia. I do wonder how our fractured societies will manage the transition to living 100, 150 and 200 years.

My wife Cathy comes from a long lived family, many living into their nineties. I am already the oldest male of my paternal line in four generations.

This reflection will be continued. Here's to two years of being sixty.