Bob Dylan has spoken about the pros and cons of aging.
The music icon addressed this while contributing to a piece in the New York Times, marking the celebration of US President Donald Trump's 80th birthday. This included a selection of octogenarians offering their perspective on what it means to reach this milestone.
While choosing not to refer to Trump specifically or his politics, Dylan said that reaching this age allows you to “outlive the clocks that have been chasing you”.
“The best thing about being 80 is that you outlive the clocks that have been chasing you,” Dylan wrote for the piece. “It’s freedom from that lie that anything was ever under control. You don’t chase the parade anymore. You’re an old king from some vanished country. You’re harder to program".
He did also point out some negatives, adding: “The old fire in your heart still tells you to do this and that, but your body says we already did it. Also, nothing surprises you. It sounds like a luxury but it’s not, and also you’ve run out of illusions".
“The really worst part about being 80 is that you find, at last, you’ve got an understanding of something that might have altered everything in the past, had it come at a time when something could still be altered,” he added. “When you’re young you think that time moves forward. At 80 you know that it doesn’t, it stands still. We’re the ones that move".
Other household names who contributed to the New York Times piece where actor, Robert Di Niro who wrote: “The president doesn’t listen to advice. He surrounds himself with feckless clowns who keep their positions by supporting his every whim. If I were able to pierce the shell of cruelty, greed, corruption and stupidity for one piece of advice … I would advise him to get some good advice from good people, and follow it".
Elsewhere, feminist writer, Gloria Steinem offered her own advice for Trump: “Resign".
Speaking of Dylan, Paul McCartney shared his own experiences of watching the singer live on stage, where he claimed that he couldn’t tell what song he was doing”. More on this from Nova here.
