Youth is Wasted on the Young

This is the topic of a debate that I shall be chairing next week.

It's a topic that amuses me AND irks me at the same time. I look at my baby girl --- who is the picture of style and elegance. Marie is 22; angelic innocence permeates her pores... and then I think of myself. "Grow old gracefully" is my response to this generation gap.

The look that I am going for is dignity. And substance. How could I have left "youthful" out? I can't help wondering if I had left out considering something society highly values. What society? Ahh... come on. The media reveres youth and beauty, let's not kid ourselves. Pictures of young people are plastered everywhere selling everything --- from holidays to hypermarkets.

So I can imagine it's going to be pretty intense. Whatever said next week, the debate will continue to go on inside my head. Sure, I've had my youth and it all went so quickly. Does youth have to end? Must youth be confined to time - space or can it go on forever...
As time is but a concept conjured up by man. Time does not really exist "out there." Time is not something one trips over, or put in one's mouth to taste and say, "Yummy" or "Yuk."

What if we went back to the place where time was born --- the mind of man. What if we altered our perception of youth? What if we altered our perception of time? If human cells renew every 6 months and each cell is brand new, why should the new hold on to the old --- information of aging, illness, etc? Why can't our "new minds" inform our body to renew and stay young?

Mind over matter, they say. Everything is the same in the end, isn't it? All Matter = Energy and back again. What drives it all? Pure intention. Hey it's all about what we want!

I can't wait to hear both sides. I'm hoping the arguments will challenge time-tested prejudices and breakthrough new limits in life as we know it.

Perhaps we could be young forever. Wouldn't that be amazing?
And more amazing is that it's all up to us to decide.