This is not a serious poem
Who could seriously entertain any idea of getting old as a positive
My father put it best, perhaps:
It beats the alternative
Which he undoubtedly heard somewhere, not being much of a writer himself.
Or maybe I heard it somewhere else
One of the important things about getting old is that no one else remembers where you heard things, so therefore can’t dispute you.
But seriously
This is not a serious poem
It’s important to get old so that young people have someone to look up to, then look down on
It’s important to get old so you realize that school is wasted on the young, which just means that you wish you could afford to go to school again where students are proving that retirement is wasted on the old
It’s important to get old in order to realize you probably know everything you need to know
which yogis say is nothing
It’s important to get old to realize most people don’t know what they’re talking about
which can make you feel superior
until you realize in your wisdom that you are undoubtedly like most people
It’s important to have someone who remembers what things used to be like
what things brought us here
what things we tried that didn’t work
what things we tried that did work
what things are important
what things don’t matter at all
what we need less of
what we need more of
It’s important to remember all these things
so that when everyone ignores them
you can be justified in your curmudgeonliness.
The importance of getting old
is that there’s no alternative
and that let’s you know that staying young isn’t the answer
Money is
yogi | author | artist
