“You don’t stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.” – George Bernard Shaw
Are you proud of the age you are? or are you one of those who take off or put on age?
I don't know how it is possible for me to feel very old and very young all at once. This is all about how I feel at that particular moment and in what company I am in. The pressure to appear stable, to have a fixed identity, job, and interests, increases for most as we age. Our experience of aging does not match up with others who share the same chronology.
Is it really the same to be 20 years old than 65?
I don't even remember just how many years I’ve been in this age group, but I feel perfectly matched with most others far younger than my age, and that makes me feel in their age group. I have a strong feeling that age is only a number, and it's all about my mindset. By the way, you can't even guess my real age, and you will be crestfallen if I tell you how old I am.
How old would you like to be right now and why?
I feel a sense of being sixty-five years old and very young, as young as twenty, all at the same time, depending on with whom I am at that very moment. My perception of age skews toward the age of the people I stay with.
I often feel old and young at the same time, depending on who I am. Though I am a senior, would you believe that I felt thirty at the time of gathering in a park with a group of young people? And my real age, while I am in the same park during the morning, walks with people my age. And it's absolutely funny how I feel about being twenty years old when in the company of twenty-year-olds.
I know a few people who have felt like forever elders since childhood, and my father was one of them, and probably that changed my mindset.
If you judge me chronologically, you would think I am 45 years old, because I have been clocked as much younger in the online world. In fact, as I presented myself online, I started getting 40+-year-old man comments and being treated more like a youth. " I guess I’ve just always been a young man in the online world, and the same is true even offline.
All of those markers of whatever you’re supposed to have by certain ages—it’s always been really hard for me. I get treated as younger because I’m still figuring things out. But I’m still trying to figure out what my life is, and that keeps me young.
I have to present myself in a certain way to receive care; it is contingent on what care I partake in to stay in order to be as I am, to be in the flow that I am.
Do you agree with the special treatment of the laws for older people?
The answer is yes and no. The ones who need care should get it but the ones who do not need it should not be given it based on their age. I must admit that if I want to be treated as younger than my real age with any kind of respect, then there’s an equation between how my hair looks and how relaxed my outfit is. After all, what you wear and look like makes a lot of difference in your appearance.
Sometimes, I wonder why I want to look younger or feel younger than my age and finally reach the conclusion. My mindset is fixed on that, and now I can't change it.
I have always felt really agitated by my feelings or the way I express myself—the cycles of the ways in which I have sought to define and have these identity contractions. I know the gesturing and the misgivings of identity, but I can't help it because that's part of my lifestyle now.
I suggest, if you look at it this way, that it's all about my inner feeling of security that provides me with a special satisfaction that gives me immense happiness or gives me access to what could eventually be my way to success. In essence, it is the act of claiming a sense of feeling that takes me into a different world. After all, age is only a number, and you can be as young or old as you want to.
Do you think 18 is old enough to be considered an adult?
Some people age slower than real age, so fixing an age limit is not justified in all cases because some people are perfect even before 18 and some are not mature enough even at 25. However, since we have to give them a stautory status, I suggest 21 is the right age when one should be given the level of an adult, but under the close observation of community observers.