Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> The poet Dylan Thomas wrote that one should not go gently into that The good night that old age should burn and rage at close of day. As a younger man reading that poem I saw futility in those words. I saw aging only as a failing: a failing of the body of the mind and even of the spirit. I saw my grandfather suffer aches and pains. Once agile and proudly self- sufficient by his sixties he struggled to swing a hammer and was unable to read the label on a box of Triscuit crackers without his glasses. I listened as my grandmother forgot words and I cried when eventually she forgot what year it was. At work I watched as people neared retirement age the spark gone from their eyes the hope from their smiles counting the days until they could walk away from it all yet with only the vaguest plans about what they would do once they had so much free time all day every day. But as I’ve grown older myself and have spent more time with people who are in the last quarter of their lives I’ve seen a different side of aging. My parents are now in their mideighties and are as engaged with life as they have ever been immersed in social interactions spiritual pursuits hiking and nature and even starting new professional projects. They look old but they feel like the same people they were fifty years ago and this amazes them. Where certain faculties have slowed they find that extra- ordinary compensatory mechanisms have kicked in-positive changes in mood and outlook punctuated by the exceptional benefits of experience.