Why is it that it's usually only our young who act as if there is a limited right time to do the things that we older folks still dream would be rewarding? Do the young somehow know that it's now or never, and that as the poet says, "we always hear/ Time's winged chariot hurrying near?" Teenagers don't typically and seriously consider that there are clearly established handicaps to life, do they? I don't think so. If they seriously considered the certainty that it's the way of nature that all living things die, they wouldn't be so anxious to grow up, would they? No sir! Our youth constantly see everything as new, as they should and will. They should not and are not being bogged down with our unforgiving overdoses of real life "realities" and sour grapes admonitions: "You're going to get old and die just like us."

Our criticism of the exuberance of our young people might just be a sign of our jealousy. We should let our youth get on with their "job," which is to rediscover the world without giving a thought to the fact that we great-uncles and grandparents were once young too, and that what they see as novel, is really a repeat performance of our similar lives, perhaps reformed and improved by their younger minds and bodies? And it's our job not to weigh them down with heavy shots of unforgiving and informed reality. Sure, we have experience, but what if our "experience" boils down to years of making the same mistakes? For after all, it is surely an old age self-deceit if we believe that we have all the right answers, just because we've managed to live long lives?

One can forgive the restlessness and impatience of our MTV-zombie-designer label-crazed- culturally-starved youth a lot better that one can tolerate old folks who make fools of themselves looking for the Fountain of Youth. There is a vanity in spending billions of dollars on ways to defeat the aging process, and it demeans us. Let's face it. Trying to "take years off your appearance" with potions and pills is nothing but a desperate attempt to deny the reality of death, and denying that reality robs us older folks of our present. Today is all we've ever had throughout our entire life, and our present "today" is still pregnant with wonderful life enhancing opportunities. But when we resist aging, we resist life itself, and all that it still has to offer us.

Focusing on "looking youthful in old age," while pushing away the constant change involved in aging reflects our culture's denial of the ever-changing process that life is, as well as, ultimately, the denial that life has its seasons. Until we accept all of life, which is much more than "born to die," we cannot truly live and enjoy today. In light of this, it seems essential to recognize the unfolding glimmers of wisdom (so painfully absent in my youth, despite my skillful good parents and my education and high IQ, all gifts unearned by me) that seems to come with the aging process. But, with my urging acceptance of the aging process, I'm not arguing here against an old age that is active and rewarding. And I do not advocate "going gentle into that enveloping night" prematurely. I believe in vigorous exercise of the mind to ward off senility, and, when absolutely forced, exercise of the body. But as we age, the mind is what counts, for long after we're unable to move about without the aid of friends and family, our minds are there for most of us. All I'm saying is that we need to "act our age." Live life day by day, and not "fight it," because fighting aging and death are battles we lost at the moment we were born.

At seventy, I catch myself thinking, "I'll not be able to do this and that in a couple of years," or I find myself giving much too much thought to death, and of the necessity to accept each of its various forms as equally natural. I've sought out what many philosophers have written on the subject, including the philosophy of the sixteenth-century Frenchman Michel de Montaigne who wrote: "Your death is a part of the order of the universe, 'tis a part of the life of the world . . . 'tis the condition of your creation." And in the same essay, entitled "To Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die," he wrote, "Give place to others, as others have given place to you." Montaigne apparently believed that death is easiest for those who during their lives have given it most thought, so always to be prepared for it. He thought that only in this way is it possible to die resigned and reconciled, "patiently and tranquilly."

As for me, I believe in experiencing life fully each day. I believe that I have always felt this way, but now after losing so many friends to death, including my brother and best friend, I live in constant awareness that living, dying, and grieving are inseparable, each seemingly dependent, in my recent experiences, on the other two for its meaning and purpose. Finally, the fear of the loss of our youthful "appearance," and the fear of death, left unexamined, and unfelt, spills over into, and too often ruins, the good times left to us. We should rather celebrate the rich variety and beauty of human expression as it naturally emerges as we grow older. I'm afraid too many of us older folks are not living in a creative, loving, and meaningful way. Are we afraid to really "live," because we are afraid to die?

Kenneth Kinchen is an independent writer with a background in international business and foreign service contracting.