Are you the same age your entire life?

According to my senior year advanced English teacher, you certainly are. One afternoon in class, he said just that to me. I do not remember for what purpose, or if it had anything to do with that week's analysis of Act I, Scene III of Julius Caesar. The fact was that, I was around 16 or 17 when he said it - and it has stuck with me ever since.

"You are the same age your entire life."

Philosophy has always been a major part of what defines me as an individual. And when someone says something to me of a philosophical nature, I will analyse it to the core. It's just the way I have always found meaning for myself, and was able to understand certain things.

Now, when you analyse age scientifically, it is a process (or a series of processes) based on the effects of time on a person and is defined by chronological psychological, physical and social change.

And of course, these are facts. They are true, and there is no denying facts in their scientific nature. We see ageing every day. We see lives being born, and lives dying. We see baby's first teeth appear, and grandma's face disappear within a bed of wrinkles. This is only the natural, factual cycle of life.

But then - you also see peculiar things. Peculiar things which are brushed off by science as psychology or behavioural patterns.

I'm talking abut a child of five talking with an air about him of an eighty-five year old, for example. Or an eighty-five year old playing some childlike game such as hide-and-seek as if he had seen the world for the first time - a face full of young, youthful joy beyond the crinkles.

Scientific factors aside, I can see how the quote "You are the same age your whole life" comes into play.

That genius child who sees the world with the eyes of an analytical adult will most likely keep this characteristic through his whole life. In fact, it will probably be a major defining aspect of his personality. On the other hand, the eighty-five year old was probably youthful through the entirety of his life. Though he obviously would have had to mature, I am willing to bet that he enjoyed the childish things in life all the way through adulthood.

And perhaps science is accurate. Maybe these are just psychological factors, and people adapting to their environment, etc.

But to me, it goes a little deeper than that. These are examples which define human characteristics - human personality. And, in my opinion, they are what define age. Not an age based on physical numbers - but an age that is deeper than that.

I'm not trying to prove anything, or go against science. All I'm saying here is that everyone should consider what 'age' really means to them and define it for themselves. Though science is fact, it is not always meaningful for everybody. True meaning can only be created by you FOR you, and I definitely encourage all of you to take on the role of creator.

-Dahlia