When I was young and hopeful, old age seemed like a planet in a galaxy a few billion light years away. Back then the Beatles reigned over the pop world and sang a silly ditty about being 64.
Back when age was not just a numeral but something we could laugh about, anyone aged over 30 was ancient, had no life left or anything to contribute.
There have been many personal events, which will live long in my memory, but on a global level, this magical number 64 which the Fab Four sang about stands tall with two other dates: 1984 and 2000.
In many a youth’s imagination those two dates were magical or scary. One was touted in George Orwell’s dystopian novel as the year where Big Brother would take over. The other, the start of a new millennium, sounded like the dawning of a totally new world.
Both dates passed with no dent to our lives or destiny. Big Brother would wait a few more years to really take over through the nightmare stuff we now experience daily with Google, Amazon and Facebook zooming in on our inner lives, knowing stuff about us which even we don’t.
The year 2000 ironically turned into a scramble to control the dreaded millennium bug which was, some doomsayers predicted, going to bring all life to a total standstill. The scenarios envisaged were airports not functioning, businesses collapsing, people hiding in bunkers to protect their food and wares. Life as we knew it was going to be swiped out.
None of these scenarios became reality at the beginning of the third millennium. Something strangely akin to what was prophesised for that date is happening 20 years later.
2020, such a perfect sounding numeral, seems to be the year when the dystopian future engulfs us. It’s not just a scary thought. It is now; we are living through it; with horrors yet to come.
If in the 1960s there was the age of free love, the Age of Aquarius, today social distancing keeps us not just from outsiders but also from our closest family. Hugs are out, kisses memories of a different era. We now live – or exist – in the age of Corona, following news and hoping for less deaths, less positive cases uncovered, more recoveries.
Even the horrendous Big Brother world, where governments and huge corporations know or can find out all about us and our whereabouts, now sounds a bit less ominous. Because if the virus-struck can be apprehended before they spread their affliction on others, isn’t that a bad thing used in a good way?
Obviously then the usual question arises regarding any surveillance: once the Corona scourge passes will the authorities still use their wealth of information and means of gathering it for nefarious reasons?
The dawning of this age of Corona has taught me another lesson. When I bade goodbye to my youth, I treasured lovely words about how young people in their 60s are and how we can still conquer the world by feeling young when our birth certificate said otherwise. Corona killed that myth as now we are the vulnerable old, the ones who need to be most careful.
I thought I would be able to laugh my age off by acting young at heart. But we aren’t going to get away with the fact that now over 60 is old, and definitely not ready to rock.
So, a few light years later, here I am “celebrating” my 64th birthday on Easter Sunday. The incredible has happened; the impossible age has been reached.
My wife and I are cut off from the world in isolation. Isolated from family and friends and all things which a few weeks ago were normal, is definitely not something I ever imagined could ever happen to me or anyone in my circle. Let alone to a big part of the world.
During the ominous Cold War, nukes were what we thought would get us. Then it was the Brigate Rosse, Al Qaeda, ISIS and various other terrorist organisations which seemed to be taking over the world, threatening us with a quick end to our life as we knew it with all its super comforts and easy travel. At a point the climate crisis seemed to be going to overwhelm us all.
Then the coronavirus struck and all came tumbling down. The world has changed and all of a sudden we have realised that we, the conquerors of all, have been cornered and conquered by a tiny virus.
Two Beatles who sang that ditty about being 64 are gone. The other two are even older geezers than I am. Humanity has lost a few beats and is losing its old cockiness. Yet we live in hope of a better tomorrow.
Happy Easter everyone and may we make the most of our newly discovered humility.
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