“Instead of intelligently instructing and quietly influencing, people now strew seeds and weeds together indiscriminately on all sides; no central point is offered any more on which to concentrate, but every-odd individual steps forward as leader and teacher, and gives forth his perfect folly as a perfected whole.”—Goethe

  Who didn’t hear “Act your age” from a scolding parent at some time in their childhood? And although I’m not there yet were I nearing seventy-five or eighty years of age and still challenging young bucks to a bout of fisticuffs or rocking to Trooper’s breakout hit ‘Hot Blooded’ and then flirting shamelessly with pretty coffee shop baristas the admonition to “act my age” would still apply. 

  Like I said… I’m not there… yet. 

  We’re talking commonly understood age appropriate and acceptable behaviour and actions here. Although nowadays who really knows anymore?

  Nonetheless as adults happy to act in a manner befitting our years it is equally important to comprehend the age in which we are acting. 

  In his Geistes-Epochen dating back nearly two hundred years now quoted above Goethe pictured human communities, cultures and civilizations as living organisms being born, growing through youth, maturing to adulthood, and ageing into senility. Each phase of their life trajectories had certain characteristics such as stage one’s poetry, heartiness, and imagination; stage two’s theology, holiness and reason; stage three’s philosophy, wisdom and understanding; and stage four’s prose, vulgarity and sensuality. 

  So then a difficult question presents itself: how exactly are we as mature, responsible and compassionate adults to ‘act our age’ today?