Word choice

Ageing has never been an issue to me.  Significance always has.  It just hit me recently that a link exists between the two.

CAUTION:  The following statements may contain assumptions not suitable for all readers.  Discretion is highly recommended.   

A graphical representation of a man’s life, I believe, would be a parabola; with say, X as the years of existence and Y as the degree of significance (pardon me for this math thing–I’ve been avidly watching NUMB3RS lately…great show).

Now, we assume that a life span of 75 years is divided into the following age groups: 0-20, 21-60 and 61-75.  The first two decades in a man’s life is basically spent at school (or somewhere else), where lessons are learned in preparation for the more ‘challenging’ years ahead.  At this point, the meaning of his life revolves on how he can pass exams and ultimately grab a diploma in his hands.  His existence is only as significant as the academic status that he has.

By the time that he graduates and lands a job, his value extends from the corners of his home to the perimeter of his workplace.  In this time span, he probably decides to create a family of his own, carrying along with it new roles to play–a responsible father and a loving husband.  The expectations of him as an obedient son or a good brother or a valuable asset to the working environment he enters into escalate to being a good provider and a sturdy pillar to the home that he builds.  The significance of his role as the CEO to the employees of his company is as enormous as his being ‘Dada’ to his three-year old son.   

As the seasons change in the first sixty years of his life, the worth of a man increases proportionately to the number of candles that he blows on a birthday cake.  His transformation from the unruly first-grader to the extremely wealthy business tycoon carries with it the gradual rise in the significance of his being, until it reaches the end of the prime years of his life. 

The shift from a 40 year-old active market analyst to a 60 year-old grandfather, sad to say, limits the expectations of a man’s abilities from creating business empires to just controlling a bladder.  The company no longer needs his opinion on how to respond to an imminent labor union nor does his son require his advice on a contemplated divorce.  From bold to old, the executive seat in his corner-room office is now just a rocking chair in the dusky porch. 

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