The Mind Creative
and to handle that. Now, a father can’t even handle a remote
control of his VCR without the help of his child. Even 5-6 year-olds
can handle some of the essential gadgets of modern life, such as
a camera or a computer, better than 50 year-olds.
Being older now means that
there are certain job titles
one
cannot
even
understand, let alone work
at. Consider, for example, a
“Securities Lending Junior
Trader”.
Or think of an
“Architectural
Furniture
Director.”
It is true, of course, that old age is less kind to
some than others. Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd,
custodian of the two holy mosques, could be
counted among the living dead since the age of 72,
after suffering a stroke. He died ten years later.
But Malaysia’s former Prime Minister, Mahathir
Mohammad, is a one-man Opposition Party at age
81, firing on all cylinders, attacking Bush, Blair and
Ahmad Badawi, his own handpicked prime minister.
Ronald Reagan, the most powerful
man in the world’s most powerful
country for eight years (President of
the United States, 1981-1989) – the
man who is personally credited with
humiliating
the
world’s
other
superpower and who had survived an
assassin’s bullet in his younger days –
came down with Alzheimer’s at the age
of 83 soon after retirement. He “lived”
his last ten years the life of an infant,
tended to by his loving wife and carers,
oblivious to the world around him, not
even knowing how to eat and dress.
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