A Pointless Pronouncement of the Aged.

I sometimes feel inclined to tell young people not to take their health and strength and energy for granted. I want to tell them to appreciate having them while they’re young because health and strength and energy become sadly depleted in later life. But then I realise that it would be a pointless, and even irrational, thing to say.

Health and strength and energy represent the default condition of life. It isn’t a matter of luck to have them; it’s the relatively small number of people who don’t have them who are unlucky. It’s like saying that if you turn onto a new page in a school exercise book you should appreciate the fact that the page is plain. Why should you? It’s the default position of an exercise book that each new page is plain, so why would you make a point of appreciating the fact?

And then there’s a simple matter of psychology to add to the argument. It’s perfectly natural and right to take the default condition for granted unless and until you’re presented with the opposite. Only then are you able to make the comparison and appreciate the default. If you turn onto a new page in an exercise book and find it unexpectedly defaced with scribbles, you turn to the next one and only then value the fact that it’s pristine.

And so, for those of us who have a life relatively free of debilitating injury or illness, it’s not until we come to old age that we are able to appreciate the having of health and strength and energy. So that’s why I don’t say it.