There is a Russian expression (really, I confirmed it with a Romanian dental technician): Once you are 40, if you wake up and nothing hurts; you are dead.
That is one way to look at growing older. Here's another. There was an ad campaign (I am told) that featured a 20's saying that he's never going to get cataracts, nor arthritis, nor even wrinkles. Why? Well, it was a campaign for disease that was infecting and killing a certain segment of the population. It ended with a plea for donations for more research. They also had a more lighthearted approach, putting a positive spin on wrinkles and grey hair as beautiful; mostly because it meant you hadn't died yet.
That's one approach to aging. Basically difference spins on "well, it beats the alternative!" I would like to suggest a different approach.
One of the most distressing situations I can imagine is being bored. Before you pshaw my phobia, consider that solitary confinement is one of the most feared punishments in prison. They get fed, comfortable-ish bedding, etc. They just get a small room with no stimulation. Persistent boredom (boredom proneness <-- yes, a real term; everything has a label nowadays) can lead to all sorts of bad behaviors. Why? Because they are trying to get out of being bored!
Imagine having just one game. You can play as much as you want, but only that one game. No matter how fun the game is the first time, after hours or days or years or decades... the newness will wear off and you'd get bored.
There is a genre of computer games called cooperative -- or just, co-op, for short (after all, they are played mostly by people who have very short attention spans) -- games where whole groups of friends and even strangers work together for some goal. In the game, you play some role and your online persona is defined by his "stats" -- health, strength, stamina, etc. Having better stats makes you a more valuable player.
But there are players who get really good at it and are in danger of getting bored. One way they stave off boredom, but still get to stay in the game, is to see how few stats they can have and still accomplish. In fact, people actually compete to find ways to have lower stats and still succeed. A friend of one who likes these games told me that in one game, there were two people who both found the two different ways to have very low stats and still kill the Boss. The online community was a buzz with pride and excitement.
Each and every moment is a new thing. There is no "inertia" about reality. Every moment you are alive was Hand crafted for you by the Creator. HaShem loves us and knows how much we hate to be bored, so we constantly get new challenges. That means that "getting older" is really just another term for "getting new challenges".
As we get more experience, we get better at handling our challenges. That could lead, chas v'chalila to boredom! So HaShem gives us a way to stay in the game and still not get bored... He lowers our stats! Less stamina, less strength, more aches and pains. Now even getting up in the morning requires more skill and cunning.
Let's go back to that expression, "Getting older beats the alternative." They mean it in a depressing and morbid way. In fact, though, the alternative would be to keep doing the same thing over and over and over and ... again. But "getting older" really means getting to play new games with different skill sets all the time. It's like a huge arcade and you can play till you run out of quarters and never run out of new games to play. Then what? After a long, exciting day at the arcade, we get to go home to our Father, our King, who wants to spend eternity with his cherished nation. So cool, no?
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