The professor and author questions our relationship with age and time based on his personal experience.
We have just marked the transition to 2024. The Chinese, in turn, will soon light their lanterns. I’ve celebrated my birthday in the meantime, but I still don’t see myself getting old. Looks like I’m not the only one, and I couldn’t tell you how many people have told me they don’t feel their age. Time doesn’t seem to pass for us as we move forward, mature and count. I understand us. We don’t have the means to capture these past years. Perhaps it was necessary to keep the proof of this day by day. It must be said that time passes discreetly, elegantly and firmly in its course.
Nothing will stop him and nothing will change his mind. He never looks back. He is life itself, undisturbed but always in motion. We measure it with our calendars, we punctuate it with our New Year’s Eve. Its effects are ultimately seen on our faces and bodies, which are clumsier and more wrinkled. But all this is not so noticeable as it goes on. I remember when I was 7 years old, I challenged myself to study the transformation of my hands over the course of an entire year to capture this passing time and see myself change. Obviously, I didn’t catch anything at all. From my point of view, my body remains the same. he is what I am, still and always. Where does this universal feeling of not feeling old come from? Not fit for his age? Old age is what some see in others. My old touch, you’re the one to watch it. But between my personal feeling and what you are looking at stands a whole world—a whole time, I must say.
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I do not have the experience of my age or this length of walking. If a few pointers could check the contrasts—a few silver threads in my hair, oblique lines on my face—I’d never see the part. Therefore, I discover my age in the eyes of others, and sometimes amuse myself by asking them what age they are willing to give me. Life is dated for civil status and history. But for him, the date has nothing to say. Our calendars are becoming dull, our birthdays no longer help us record the passing of time. And when size doesn’t matter anymore, it’s because we’re mature enough to assert ourselves regardless of these looks and watches. Our inability to identify what makes us young or mature, well maintained or not, is a healthy resistance. Not letting age define you is the best way to stay alive.
The latest work published by Sophie Galabru. Make it a familyAllary Editions, 2023.
Source: Le Figaro
