--- In [email protected], genevieve mandrake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > That's really sweet to know there are men that don't > regard women as handy-wipes.
That's a great line that would be funnier if it weren't so true about so many men. There are times when I'm embarrassed to be around them. > I'm not a young woman and I quite agree on the opposite > side of the spectrum. I find young men in their early > 20s very refreshing when it comes to conversation. They > haven't hit the dull monotony of everyday life and fatigue, > are less cynical about love, curious about the world and > find older women fascinating! Kudos to the youth... Indeed. The odd (very odd) spiritual teacher I worked with for a number of years had an interesting metaphor that explained a little of this. At one point he noticed that a lot of his students -- whose focus in life had shifted from looking for love in all the wrong places to looking for success in their careers and insights in their spiritual sadhana -- were a little lonely. So he recommended Scotties. The dogs, not the tissues. :-) And it really worked. The dogs gave a lot of these folks who had grown overly-focused on their careers and their spirituality someone to *love* and care for, someone to take them out of the self-absorption cycle. And, like some of his other weird ideas about spiritual prac- tice, it actually worked. The students were happier, playing with their young dogs, and the dogs themselves were happy just to be playing. Time passed, and some of these dogs -- who, after all, are on a very different time cycle than humans -- started getting older. And so Rama's suggestion to the students was to get their pets a pet. Get a puppy for your adult dog to play with. And again, it worked like a charm. These older dogs, who had begun to lose a little of their phwam! and tendency to frolic just for the fun of it, were suddenly sharing a house with a young puppy who had no *choice* but to frolic just for the fun of it. And the fun was contag- ious. It was like magic, watching these old dogs learn new tricks. And watching their owners learn new tricks, too. That's why I occasionally love these long, won- derful conversations with younger people. I'm an old fart who really puts some energy into not growing OLD as I grow older. And being around someone who just does that naturally, because they're still young "puppies," is rejuv- enating. It reminds me that I'm only as old as I choose to be. And, although my original rap was about young women, obviously (given your post) age isn't the only factor in growing older without growing OLD. You seem to have managed quite well, and my kudos to you for having accomplished that. One of the youngest, most vibrant people I've ever met was a lady named Tasha Tudor. She's an artist and a fairly famous illustrator of children's books and books about gardening. She lives in a cabin in Vermont, probably not all that far from where Off lives. I got to spend the weekend at her cabin once, because I was dating a young woman who was her friend. And Tasha just blew me away -- her energy, her vitality, her love of life. I'd try to follow her around as she milked and fed the goats and worked in her gardens and did all the chores that have to be done on a self-sufficient farm in Vermont. I'd be tired and ready for a nap before she was. And her *mind*...it was just razor-sharp, insightful, strong, and suffering no fools. She was, in my book, one of the loveliest young women I've ever had the pleasure to meet. She was 75 at the time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasha_tudor
