You're Only As Old As Your Age

Which is to say, you're only as old as how many years you've lived. To be clearer, it's like how many years the planet you're standing on (Earth, probably) has been around the Sun with you on it. Like, let's say you've been on the Earth for 31 years (like me), you can quantify how old you really are by figuring out, in that amount of time, how many complete cycles the Earth has made around the Sun (probably 31). What I'm trying to say is, is that if you are 31, or hell, even 21, that's how 21 or 31 feels like. You can say, "I feel like I'm 31" when you are 31 because at that point you, in your body, are 31 and that's how it feels like to be in your body at 31.

Some people say, "40 is the new 30" or, even more absurdly, "30 is the new 20", but that is mathematically impossible. Even if you were to develop, say, a time machine, there would be no way for you to make yourself in your own body any younger - you would be ten years in the past (2003!), warning everyone about the Iraq War, but you would realize, eventually, that you were ten years in the past but you were still aging, and were, in fact, older now (the relative now) then when you went into the past to begin with, because every day and every second you live no matter what time stream you are living in you are getting older.

Unless you're Doctor Who

Travelling at light speed, it is said, slows down aging and time itself (for those within the vessel). But it's still not proven that light speed is possible, dummy. And by the time someone does figure light speed out it's going to be too late for you, you'll be like 41 and too old for the rigors of space travel (guess what, at 41 you'll feel like you're 41).

So, I don't know what your problem is.

I know that if I had a choice I'd be in my 30's forever because my whole life, even when I was a child, I wanted to be in my 30's. I said, "I am ten and I feel like I am ten but I want to be thirty someday and live like I am thirty." And now I'm thirty...one. And it's great. I wish I had more money, but whatever.

But I've been thinking about aging and mortality and how I want to hold onto my thirties as long as I can, and really it's only like nine years longer and there's nothing I can do about that except if we have clones soon then I can kill my clone and insert my brain in there - ah, who am I kidding I couldn't kill anyone with that cute face!

Just don't deny it's going to happen, aging until your death, because it's going to happen because you're getting older and you will die. Maybe not today but (there's a good chance) tomorrow, probably.

Death is an asshole

But why die? That is the question. Or, to paraphrase Shakespeare's Hamlet, "Why would you not want to be?"

The answer! "Death gives meaning to life," say some.

Really? I don't think so. I think life would have just about as much meaning for me without death around, thanks anyway.

"If you lived forever you would not appreciate the beauty of life," says almost everyone. But how do you know that? I'd like to test that theory myself. I think I'd appreciate it just fine. I'd like living above not living, but that's just me maybe. Also, I don't believe you.

So why die?

Because you'll get old and your body will wear down and if you're not killed by one of the seven billion other people on this planet or by some fluke accident or by disease or by animal, if you live through all of that your heart will just get overworked and stop. And if there's any consciousness left in some spiritual plane, you'll say, "I feel like I am dead" and you would be right.

But me, I'm gonna live as long as I can, as long as I'm allowed - and by that I don't mean climbing a mountain or visiting Antarctica or going on a religious pilgrimage, I mean I'm going to breathe as long as I can while standing on this spinning planet, and when Death comes, I don't care if I'm 275 years old, I'll still tell him (or her) that they're a no good bastard; "You fiend," I'll cry, hands flailing adroitly on my deathbed, "I was just starting to figure it all out."