The First Symptom
I'm 55 years old, and, if you're not yet there, you might appreciate a gentle warning about the symptoms that commonly develop at this particular age. If you've already reached this cataclysmic era, then perhaps you'll find comfort in the knowledge that a) you're not alone, and/or b) you're wearing better than I am. As you approach 55, you start to notice yourself, and you may feel compelled to question your motives. It can come as a surprise when you begin to catch lucid glimpses of the person you've been living as. As 55 year-old Jim Carrey recently said: "We spend our life running around looking for anchors. 'Oh, I’m Italian, that’s who I am.' The fact is you don’t exist. You’re nothing but ideas. We take all those ideas and cobble them together and make sort of a personality charm bracelet, an ID bracelet we wear in life. But that’s not who we are, because we’re nothing." Hearing this at the age of 55 is not depressing, it'...