Scrolling through old journals this morning I came across this from  Isabel Allende—

The longer I live, the more uninformed I feel. Only the young have an explanation for everything.

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.