We are all getting older! No, we are not!

The cheerful headline We are all getting older or the slightly less exuberant versions mentioning rising life expectancy would be really good news, were it not for a couple of downers.

The big one, of course, is that some experts and non-experts rush to announce the end of the world one or two paragraphs into the feel good story. The more informed will call for adjusting retirement age, the more idiotic ones will ask for a retirement age of 80 years.

Invariably, the idiots calling for an 80 year retirement age at this point in the 21st Century come from two groups of people: those who could easily have retired at age 30 or 35 and those who spend their lives in protected government or quasi government jobs with no physical or mental hazards other than putting a staple into a finger out of sheer boredom.

The preceding paragraph may sound a bit harsh, but don't be upset. The blogster values jobs without life shortening qualities as much as everybody. Going overboard on a lobster boat, getting electrocuted by 100kV power line, getting burnt to the consistency and crispness of a Thanksgiving turkey, or simply falling of a building - none of these seem desirable.

But do think about those folks next time you hear a bright eyed motivational speaker ask for a general retirement age of 80.

There is this sad word "average", used casually with regard to life expectancy. It really means that with an average life expectancy of, say, 70 years, a hell of a lot of people die before they get there.

This is well known, you say? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

Knowledge never matters if it is not acknowledged. You may say, well, stay off of the lobster boat, and leave that power line alone. We can disagree, but at least you have shown some thought.

The blogster is not that old, yet many people from the cohort -- a fancy word for saying many people out of that age group -- have already died. Their life expectancy didn't help them one bit.

So, no, we are not all getting older.

In one of the more personal moments on this blog, there is also the fact that the blogster has family lines in which a 60 year old would have been called an adolescent. Seriously, with a bunch of 90 plus and a few 100 year olds, don't tell me I'm going to live longer. That was before antibiotics, too. No envy please, either, the blogster is unlikely to make it that far.

At least, we beat the average life expectancy of a turkey.