Power, status, and age

I don't like the fact that I'm getting older. But one nice thing about it is that I seem to feel that the status gap between me and the more powerful is shrinking. When we were kids, the status gap was not that huge. (Perhaps it was bigger than I remember. It certainly wasn't that huge when we were very little kids, though.)

As we grow older, the status gap grows with us. My guess is that it reaches its maximum at about 50 - 60, when the very successful are near the pinnacle of their careers.

But after that it starts to decline. The older one gets, the clearer it is that power and status mean less and less. We are all subject to the physical frailties of age. Money and power don't change that. Certainly the rich and famous can buy better medical care. But for people who have some basic medical support that doesn't make that much difference. We are all going to die. (Perhaps that will change sometime this century, but that's another story.) For now, there is some comfort in feeling the power and status gap shrink as I get older.