youth
You are viewing stuff tagged with youth.
You are viewing stuff tagged with youth.
Yesterday, I saw the movie Atonement. For those of you curious about the movie and who also want a vocabulary work out, take a read through the Washington Post’s review by Ann Hornaday. Now, though I still have yet to decide if I liked the movie or was merely enchanted by the cinematography, there is one flat-out great shot in the movie which I can not forget.
As the human body ages, certain immune system organs actually shrink. For example, there’s the thymus: here, T cells (one of the primary components of the immune system’s ability to recognize and eliminate foreign antigen) are converted from naïve to mature. If you look at a picture of the thymus of a teen next to one of an 80 year old, the difference is striking. It’s not like the color and texture difference between a cancerous lung and a normal lung—there’s actually hardly any thymus left in the 80 year old’s picture. Why the geriatric thymus continues to function effectively is the topic of another post. But the fact remains: there’s a definite change in the immune system with the passage of time.
Fall: the time of year when the green life in trees explodes, painting the roads and rivers the brightest, most intense colors that deciduous life knows. It is with this exclamation point of yellow, orange, and red that the life of summer finally yields to oncoming winter. The annual metamorphosis of long days to short, leafy green to snow white, and blue skies to dirty gray is always a time of reflection for me. This year, though, as I watch the throbbing of life in the outdoor world turn a corner to a dormant state, I come upon a realization that is nothing earth-shattering, but nevertheless intensely personal: everything has its Fall.
I’ve been meaning to write this for a while. It was one of those simple encounters that really leaves an impact on you: I was lifting weights, and dropped down off a bar, my brain in its usual meditative/survival state that it drops into when my heart -rate is up for an extended period. So, it took me a while to absorb what was said when an older man walked past me, saying “ahh, to be young again.” The effect it had on me was surprising: suddenly, I was wondering what it was like to be old, what it means to wake up and think that there is a clock ticking somewhere inside of you.
Despite all the tests, quizzes, labs, papers, and final preparations that you are going through right now, there will not be another time in your life like this. You will not live so close to so many friends, sharing such a unique living space again. You will not change and grow so much as an individual in such a short space of time again. You will not find new interests, or have the time to pursue them, in the same way you do now.