From a story in The New York Times

Well, let’s back up just a minute. My grandmother — my beloved grandmother, who’s like a third parent to me — had a saying that when somebody gets older, they don’t really change; they just become more so. In other words, whatever is their disposition — kind, they become kinder. Cantankerous, they become more ornery. And you just see this progression with Trump. He is just becoming more of what he’s been for a long time. And at some point, you become so much more, you almost tip over into alternate realities. And this is one thing that will never cease to amaze me: the independent standard by which he is judged. If anyone else in politics was doing any of this, you would really start to wonder, are they OK? I mean, is this person OK, right?

“The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”

— H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) Via Philosophy Quotes

Substack user Joshua Corey writes 

In Russian novels characters in their fifties are routinely described as being “in the prime of life.” Clinging to this.  

According to The Writer's Almanac, John Updike gave this account of his creativity—

No amount of learned skills can substitute for the feeling of having a lot to say, of bringing news. Memories, impressions, and emotions from your first 20 years on earth are most writers' main material; little that comes afterward is quite so rich and resonant. By the age of 40, you have probably mined the purest veins of this precious lode; after that, continued creativity is a matter of sifting the leavings.

Seems like a pretty good description of aging, too.

Six hundred people thought they were coming to see comedy and they got some of that and then, to their amazement, they were standing and singing “America” and “I Saw Her Standing There” and “How Great Thou Art,” and they were stunned by how beautiful they sounded. It’s stunning. People spend so much time alone, plugged into electronics, and here they are with an intense sensation of humanity. They don’t applaud for themselves, they simply are very moved.

This is the beauty of old age. Your ambition has faded away. You’re not going to set off fireworks. The world has gone off in other directions. AI is coming on fast and soon you’ll record yourself saying all the vowels and consonants, prepositions, conjunctions, and the computer will program Moby-Dick read in your voice — add a few other vowels and you’ll have Proust in French spoken by you, voilà! — but right now it’s still possible for an old man and a few hundred strangers to create an intimate evening together that’s not like anything else.… 

Having seen so much history gives a person a deep love of his country and people. So I want to keep on working, doing my outmoded show, speaking in my odd American voice.

Via Garrison Keillor, Garrison Keillor and Friends