On turning sixty this day

OLDVSYOUNG[1]I have moved my birthdate to December 31st in Facebook to avoid receiving an outpouring of meaningless greetings from mostly unknown friends but, unfortunately, I forgot to change it in Skype and then I could do nothing with my credit card, with Cathay Pacific, a chain of hotels and several more trolls-driven systems which are set to imitate human sentiments.

I remember a writer stating that all old men hide a boy inside themselves who is continually asking: ‘Ehi, what has happened to you?’  That is what more or less I feel today. How will I spend this day? Nulla dies sine linea, as Pliny the Elder recommended to his nephew. I’ll write a review of an Italian book which is quite challenging, since I do not like the author and his way of exposing history, also because he is going against some of my long held assumptions: it will be like grinding a granite stone and  will keep me busy; then I’ll see two friends who forgot that it is my birthday, this will give me pleasure to let them know it at the last moment.

I writer and a blunt friend from Milan writes to tell to look at the positive side of aging and appreciate that, in spite of all the dangers and risks, I am still alive. Yes, by Jove, it is! In fact we say that our factory guarantee expires at fifty . He is one month older than me and he adds that our vigour and experience are still more or less in balance – with experience getting more and more heavier by the day – and that we should use wisely the time ahead, ceasing to think to possess and immortal ego, not picking up useless quarrels and make use of the next twenty or something years before all the last neurons in my brain will go down the drain.

Indeed I find this a sound advice, I’ll take it!