It is important to remember that these are your Declining Years, in which you can jolly well decline to do what you don't feel like doing, unless not doing it would make you feel worse than doing it.

But let me say this about learning experiences: they're weird. Or put it this way: what you learn from a learning experience is generally something else.

forgetting things is what gives old age a bad name, that and old age.

I didn't learn for years that you generally find your Self after you quit looking for it.

You may have noticed, as I have, that if ever you find yourself declaring emphatically and unequivocally that you will never do some one particular thing, chances are good that this is precisely what you will one day find yourself doing.

The fact is, the cocktail party has much in its favor. Going to one is a good way of indicating that you're still alive and about, if such is the case, and that you're glad other people are, without having to spend an entire evening proving it.

many people choose, early on, their own truths from the large smorgasbord available. And once they've chosen them, for good reason or no reason, they then proceed rather selectively, wisely gathering whatever will bolster them or at least carry out the color scheme.