The active ager's anthem

Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote "Ulysses," a poem from the viewpoint of an aged Ulysses, he of Homer's Odyssey fame. I like to read it as an anthem of how to face the aging process, something relevant to anyone who has been called a senior citizen. The phrase "senior citizen" seems limiting in some ways. I encountered another phrase: active ager. These are people in that 50 years old age bracket who don't want to slow down.

Some great lines from Ulysses:

  • "I cannot rest from travel: I will drink / Life to the lees"
  • "All times I have enjoy'd / Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those / That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when / Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades / Vext the dim sea"
  • "For always roaming with a hungry heart / Much have I seen and known"
  • "I am a part of all that I have met"
  • "How dull it is to pause, to make an end, / To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!"
  • "Come, my friends, / 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world."
  • "Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' / We are not now that strength which in old days / Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; / One equal temper of heroic hearts, / Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Come on out to a Nordic walking session and come alive!