silva rerum

Old age should burn and rave at close of day

Since this sum­mer really got into the swing of things, I’ve noticed that I’ve changed in many ways. That teen­agers annoy (and might always do so) me can­not be entirely attrib­ut­able to my brother’s attempts to ques­tion my san­ity. I always knew that I was a bit pre­co­cious but now I real­ise with dread and trepidation…I’m old!

Most not­ably, I now enjoy a reg­u­lar sleep­ing pat­tern. If I hap­pen to try to stay up much later than usual, I can’t. And if I should try to sleep in past my usual wake-​up time, I can usu­ally only go for maybe 1–2 hours more than I usu­ally get. My eat­ing pat­terns, too, have become reg­u­lar. Gone are the happy days as a teen­ager when sleep­ing and wak­ing up could be done upon a whim and eat­ing occurred when there was ever food.

It makes me won­der too, then, about my men­tal changes along with these physiolo­gical ones. I won­der if I’m more mature? I was always a bit of a stick in the mud to begin with any­way so I can only won­der if I’ve got­ten more bor­ing. Being old might explain, though, my some­times habit of being cantankerous.

I sup­pose a little-​known fact about me is that one of the nick­names my par­ents have given me is “old man.” From a strictly Confucian philo­soph­ical point-​of-​view, I’m not so sure that that’s a bad thing.