Third Zone by Boboy Yonzon
Third Zone

Si, Senior

May 30, 2022, 5:17 AM
Boboy Yonzon

Boboy Yonzon

Columnist

Magbiro ka na sa bagong gising, ‘wag lang sa senior citizen.

Those at the receiving end of old people’s wrath will attest that the latter’s tongues could be tarty when let loose, which happens to be every time.

I’ve witnessed senior citizens (like me) raising their voice, haranguing bank tellers, waiters, guards, young people and even each other – sometimes comically, sometimes sadly.

“I know my rights!” is a common angry ammo when they complain about perceived grievances, disservice or misbehavior.

At age 60 and above, the society thinks that they have gone through the worst of life and believe that they are worthy survivors.

As such, they should be treated like heroes of the earth and must be accorded appropriate pansin and pagkilala.

They believe they have earned the right to be cranky, irrational, boorish, and forgetful. They rationalize that these only come naturally. They are results of wear and tear or chemical imbalances in the body.

When you think about it, senior citizens never had it so good especially the Pinoy kind.

The twenty percent discount plus VAT exemption, free parking, free movies, jumping the lines, special cakes and such have made them feeling special and, I suspect, regally privileged.

In other words, hehe, spoiled.

The law that gives people above sixty sweet treatment assumed that their beneficiaries are at the last lap of their lives and must be given rites of despedidas. Haha.

Hold it. At the rate that humans are living longer healthy these days, we might have senior citizens demanding their due for forty more years or so.

Imagine a roomful of fart-challenged citizens trying to have a disco party? Or a line of wrinkled ladies lining up in a movie comfort room?

Why not consider raising the age of retirement? Or dismantling the discrimination against hiring “oldies” because they are deemed unproductive?

Paradigms ought to change.

Wellness practices and awareness are running third gear.

Western medicine is fusing with Asian traditional therapies.

Liver flushes, acupuncture, organic diet, colonics, energy healing, ad infinitum – the options to stay hale and hunky seem endless.

Ask the guys who have had stem cell therapy and they’d probably say they don’t need Viagra. So, why then would they deserve discounts when they are capable of mounting and dismounts?

“60 is the new 40”, making the pitch “40 is the new 30” quite ancient. Nowadays it is just normal for cougars or senior women to snatch willing Adams aged between 20 and 30. Watch the matrons shriek over the KDrama hunks!

The society no longer raises its eyebrow over matches made in heave-in, misis na may asim pa parading totoy may gatas sa labi pa.

What about the d.o.ms ? I don’t think their image as predators will change overnight.

For the longest time, they’ve made such a bad rep of getting young women just because they are sex trophies. Sans love earns sans sympathies.

Don’t get me wrong. Old men want to live longer not for sex alone. Yes, there are also sublime reasons to wish for longevity.

As for me? I had a view that I would be content reaching 60 years old, and go kaput. That was more than ten years past. Erase that thought, I frantically said; it could be self-fulfilling.

And so far, the stars have been very generous in making my wishes come true.

That is not to say, I don’t put a little will into them.

My dad went at the young age of seventy.

But my grand dads, both from the father and mother sides, stayed up to their nineties, and that was before breakthrough developments in medical science.

So, I thought, if you reach ripe old geezer age without too much illness, pwede na rin. My doctors recently said that there was nothing worrisome about my health indicators, despite trips to ER that, thank God, turned out to be false alarms.

There is a lot to celebrate about life, not just on weekends. There is so much of the world to see. I lost a lot of buddies in the past two years which only tells me I have to make new, younger friends.

Even if I feel cranky these days, my bucket list gets longer and longer.

There is a lot of time. Forty more years to go. Knock on wood.


We take a stand
OpinYon News logo

Designed and developed by Simmer Studios.

© 2024 OpinYon News. All rights reserved.