We Are All Peter Pan
Age means change, if we need a tidy way to summarize super-complex biological processes. To be a human being, or a plant, or an insect, or an ocean, or an ecosystem, is to march continually onward, relentlessly, in a perpetual act of metamorphosis, whether it’s one that is entropic or rejuvenative in nature.
So if the default state of humanity is change — one in which our lives are immersed at every turn — why is it that we are so resistant to our innate transformation — the central truth about our humanity? Why is it that when it comes to our beliefs, for example, we hold on for dear life, attacking those who challenge them as though they are striking at the very heart of our souls, when in all likelihood, we are going to shed them like yesterday’s fashions just as soon as we make up our minds to do so? Similarly, why is it that we lay siege on our physical selves? Forget the economic costs — money that could surely be put to better things than injecting toxins into our faces or cutting ourselves open in a bid to appear as though we were dipped in wax. They are no more than a pointless attempt to stop time, to convince ourselves and others — without success — that we are forever young, and carefree.
To fight our bodies’ aging is about as patently unnatural as any mission we could imagine undertaking, because it sets us apart from — and in a confrontational relationship with — the…
