{"id":3773,"date":"2023-08-06T11:58:06","date_gmt":"2023-08-06T11:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=3773"},"modified":"2023-08-06T11:58:07","modified_gmt":"2023-08-06T11:58:07","slug":"getting-older","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=3773","title":{"rendered":"Getting Old(er)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Well, once again, it\u2019s my birthday. I guess when your birthday comes around, it represents another year of growth and lessons learned \u2014 and \u2014 the opportunity to pause, reflect and appreciate all that we are \u2014 and have been. Birthdays also serve as a convenient time to reflect on what\u2019s been accomplished or achieved over the past year.
Growing old is a privilege \u2014 everyone is getting older, but not everyone is growing<\/em> older. So since it\u2019s my birthday I thought I\u2019d talk about what I\u2019d like to be when I grow old\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I guess one of the things I think is ok about getting old is that you can, in (hopefully) subtle ways thumb your nose at convention with fewer consequences than when you were younger. Maybe that\u2019s a good goal for when I get old.
In many cultures, and in the past around here, older people were revered as the carriers of wisdom and the archivists of the group\u2019s knowledge and experience. Today \u2014 not so much. People probably figure any knowledge old people have is outdated. I\u2019ll try not to fall into the \u201cdated\u201d category.
I\u2019ve noticed that the least interesting older people that I know are the ones that do the same things, have the same conversations and express the same opinions \u2014 over and over and over. This is a hard one, but I\u2019ll try to stay current and not sound like a broken record from the past.
I think that generally old people are largely expected to be dignified and respectable \u2014 and usually clueless\u2026. and not much else. I was never dignified \u2014 or respectable \u2014 so I\u2019m not going to start when I\u2019m old. I\u2019ll probably continue to be clueless, but I\u2019m not going the dignified route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what do I want to be when I grow old? I want to be my own person, do my own thing, try to make myself (and others) happy, make use of what I\u2019ve learned over the years, learn new things, believe what I know to be true, surround myself with good company \u2014 and continue to have fun.
Keep checking back here to see if when I get old, I\u2019ve achieved my goals.
But today\u2019s only my 85th birthday \u2014 let the celebration begin.
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, once again, it\u2019s my birthday. I guess when your birthday comes around, it represents another year of growth and lessons learned \u2014 and \u2014 the opportunity to pause, reflect and appreciate all that we are \u2014 and have been. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3774,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773\/revisions\/3774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}