Youth is a lie, a myth fed to you like religion but equally as false. Be enlightened. You begin to grow old from the moment of your conception and death is equally at the side of every human being through all of life’s stages. Instead of weeping and fretting over the grey springing up in your hair and the deepening wrinkles on your skin, know that they are glorious victories. How many children will never grow old enough to see those lines upon their cheeks and brows? Every whisp of grey, every line, is a battle that you fought and emerged from victorious. They are your trophies; wear them proudly. Praise of youth is decadence because youth, if you are lucky, is the ignorant beginning and lasts so short a time. Those who lose themselves in youth lose themselves completely and use growing old as an excuse to once again return to the cradle. Youth is not Man; it is ephemeral, ever changing, and ever out of reach. But age, that is Man. With it come those countless daily victories against our only enemy and with that comes wisdom and strength. He who cherishes youth, gives death the victory before the battle has been fought; he has lost before even trying to defend what is rightfully his. Perhaps if people ceased to pine over their lost youth, growing old would not be so ugly. Your body does not work as well when it is very old, but it does not work very well when you are very young either. And it has fought and fought for you against the insufferable odds of death that threaten you from the day of your conception. Embrace those lines and that grey; love them, for they are, contrary to the tale you are taught to believe, a glorious sign of life and of Man’s persistence and refusal to give up the fight. I know that I, one day, will look at my face and my hair and smile, for I will have beaten innumerable odds and won an infinite amount of improbable victories.
