[life] Youth and Beauty

There is a definate bias in our society against the elderly, as if it's due to laziness that people get old. There is the perception that people will have done everything that they can usefully do by the time they hit about fifty or so, and that afterward, they can be dismissed, condescended to, and assumed to be doing nothing of interest or note.

Witness the ads for aging cremes, Viagra, hair transplants, teeth whitening products, hair dye.
People are terrifed of getting old.

I have to say, as a writer, I am looking forward to it. Most of my favorite authors are in their forties or above - Lois McMaster Bujold is in her late fifties, as is George R.R. Martin. I fully expect that the best of my work will come in those later years, after I have ceased to be "relevant" as the majority of the world measures such things.