How you doin’? Oh, good, I guess…

Which one was at Woodstock?

Growing Old in America: Expectations vs. Reality

29 Jun 09 Getting old isn’t nearly as bad as people think it will be. Nor is it quite as good. On aspects of everyday life ranging from mental acuity to financial security, a new Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends survey finds a sizable gap between expectations that young and middle-aged adults have about old age and actual experiences reported by older adults themselves.

The survey also found that the generation gap is wider now than it has been at any time in the past 40 years. Nearly eight-in-ten adults say there is “a major difference in the point of view of younger people and older people today,” up from 74% in 1969 at the height of the counterculture’s challenges to the establishment.

Read more: http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/736/getting-old-in-america

My comment: Actually, I’m beginning to disagree with the Bob Dylan song lyric “may you stay forever young”. I think getting old has many benefits, as you will maybe see if you click the link above to read more about this topic. I think a better line would be “may you stay forever curious”, although harder for a songwriter to put to a beat and certainly not as appealing to a mass audience.

And I’ve always had trouble with the word ‘forever’. Can we ever truly concieve of or approach infinity? Even math has trouble with that one I believe. Is this sounding like an old fart? OK, I’ll resort to a term that was popular when I was staying in Newport Beach for a summer back in the mid-70’s: “just shine it on, dude!”