How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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We have seen women of fifty and sixty torturing their flesh in order to fool themselves into the belief that they are still young. Others go through obscene and vulgar sexual or social contortions to prove vainly that they have not lost their youth. We have seen seventy-year-old men with arteries like pipestems trying to compete with boys in tennis until they dropped dead of apoplexy, simply because they could not look the reality of old age in the face. Millions of pounds are spent annually by women who, when they should be enjoying a happy old age, rush around from masseur to beauty expert and back again in a panicky attempt to prove that they are still young. Neither face-lifting, flashy clothes, heavy drinking, sexual orgies, nor social over-activity can dupe nature. These temporary devices, in the end, do not even deceive the faded and jaded women who use them. The more hectic the attempt to prove youth in the face of sagging tissues and hardened arteries, the more tragic the spectacle, the more intolerable the situation, the greater the danger of a complete mental and physical breakdown of the personality. The reckless quest for speed, power, youth, or vitality leads first to the open arms of the charlatan, to the embrace of the sneering gigolo, and eventually to the grave. It is as if youth were a beautiful house in wrhich we have been invited to sojourn temporarily. Delightful as our week-end may have been, it is both tactful and right that we should pack our things and be on our way and off to our work before our host becomes restless and is com¬ pelled to make false excuses to speed our parting. Matura¬ tion and senescence of body and mind are inexorable laws of nature. We cannot escape from the final truth that we all grow old and die. It is better, therefore, to be philosophic about this fact, and to prepare to make the long reaches of maturity interesting and peaceful To do this we must learn the fine art of growing old gracefully. To grow old gracefully requires a maximum of that form of objectivity we call “ a sense of humour ”. The