I personally think that age is overrated. You are exactly as old as you are, period. There is no way to change the number of years that past since you were born and because of that there is no need to keep track. You only will be of the age that you currently are once in your life. Whatever it feels like, that must be it.

In fact, the pure statement of feeling younger implies that there is a difference between the actual and the age we feel. To notice a difference one would have to know what the actual age is like and compare it to the “felt age”. That is rather difficult, since we always tend to “feel” age. Taking other people’s opinion of what age is supposed to be like doesn’t count much either, because they also only “feel age”. It’s all relative in a sense.

What is interesting here is the pure fact that people of a certain age start thinking about this stuff. What is even more interesting is the question if people who now feel younger than they are ever felt the other way around; being older than they are. It might seem like a difficult question, but it can be answered easily. Just take a look at kids growing up. From the early stages of development, they mimic the behavior of their elders. Take a look at teenagers who are demanding to be treated equally as adults. They for sure do not feel younger than they are.

The most interesting question that evolves out of all this is the following: If people early on in life feel older than they are and later on feel younger than they are, is there a point in life when we feel exactly as old as we are? And if so, when was that and how long did it last?

There is no answer that is true for everybody, but the point in life when we stop to feel older than we are and start to feel younger, that, my dear friends, is the point we start to get old.

I came across this site by accident and my first though was: “Amazing! Finally something useful on the Internet!” I’m not saying that there is nothing else out there that is useful. That was just the first thing that came to my mind. There’s no second chance for a first impression.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. Here is what they say about themselves:

It [TED] started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free.

Our mission: Spreading ideas.

Here two links to get you started. The first one got me interested, the second one got me hooked:

• Wade Davis: Cultures at the far edge of the world
• Susan Savage-Rumbaugh: Apes that write, start fires and play Pac-Man

My dear friends,

I have to commute about 30 miles to work everyday, one way. Whenever I can, I use public transportation in my case BART, Bay Area Rapid Transit, a train line that connects half of the San Francisco Bay Area. Sure, it takes a little longer and sometimes it smells a little weird inside (keep a wet towel on your porch for a couple of days and you get a pretty good idea), but I’m willing to take that.

I enjoy the 10 minutes bike ride from the last station to the office. That’s my daily dose of fresh air and keeps me connected to my surroundings. Riding the train also provides a great opportunity to catch up with some reading. I still prefer reading from good old paper over sitting in my car struggling with the Bay Area traffic and listening to audio books on my iPod. In fact, I don’t even have an iPod.

But the main reason why I like riding the train is because of the other 320,000 people that use BART every week. As I watch people getting on and off the train it always strikes me that I will probably never see that person, that particular face, again in my life. Granted, the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most densely populated areas in the United States, but that does not lessen my fascination. Every single face in this crowd belongs to a person with a different story.

That nervously looking teenager standing right next to the doors, will he apply for his first job today? He definitely looks out of place with his suit and the tie. Or that older Chinese man who is studying an ad-paper with the same serious look as the business man behind him the Financial Times. Was he born in China? Maybe he grew up in San Francisco China Town, bursting with pride when he was left alone for the first time to overlook his parents laundry-salon when he was eleven years old. That women over there in a nurse’s uniform. She looks tired. Is she on the way home to her loved ones after a long night shift at the hospital?

Simply looking at all these people and imagining what could be their story provides a great source of inspiration. And sometimes all I have to do is watch and listen. On a busy Tuesday morning I sat across a mid-aged guy, wearing glasses, a little overweight, thin hair, in a dark shirt with a suit case on his lap. His wife probably put that shirt on a chair so he could find it in the morning when he was getting ready for the office. If you have seen the movie Office Space, he was a little bit like that stapler guy, without a stapler and not as nervous, but you could see he’s a little shy. Anyway, the train was approaching the next station and people queued up in front of the door.

While the train was still moving, he got in line and for a fraction of a second made eye contact with another guy joining the queue. He was in good spirits and greeted with a: “How are you doing?” A little embarrassed, stapler guy answered: “Fine, thanks.” His reply was followed by another question: “How is the analysis coming along?”

Here we obviously had an attempt to start off some small-talk. “Pretty well, thanks.” And as dry as a James Bond martini, happy guy said: “Yeah, I hate my job too.” At this point the doors opened, they left the train and parted in different directions. I never figured out if they knew each other or not.