I suppose like everything else in life it will have changed, I doubt like most things now not for the better.
That's just a function of age I guess. Every generation thinks the next one has gorn downhill and life ain't what it was. It certainly seems that way to me but I don't particularly trust my judgement to be impartial.
I wrote a pome about a function of age!! I suspect the expression 'poetry' may well be in the ear of the listener or reader. This should cause a few grumps, I was a bit younger at the time and had just finished my period of bankruptcy
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A FUNCTION OF AGE - Poetry it ain't!
You're finished at fifty, just accept the truth
that you can't compete with the power of youth.
Don't believe what you're told, that experience counts,
to prove you can cope when the pressure mounts,
you have to have studied and we need to see
that you carry the passport - a good degree.
We don't want you to prove you can still be a thinker,
we want you in our stream, hook line and sinker.
You're fixed in your ways and your ways are out,
what the hell do you think this life is about?
Its cash that is king, sod the old, sod the poor,
don't bring their troubles to our front door.
So you ran it yourself, that was then, this is now.
You tried and you lost, we're not interested how
you arrived at this stage,
its probably just a function of age.
You've lost the lot, well we all make mistakes
but it does go to show, you've not got what it takes.
You can't expect that, at your time of life,
when you've lost your home your car and your wife,
you'll able to do what you once did so well,
you have to accept you've got nothing to sell.
You're bankrupt of cash, bereft of ideas.
I don't understand your unnatural fears
of never again earning a living wage,
its probably just a function of age.
Lets face it old man, you've got nothing to give,
we need someone who's got a long time to live,
someone who's happy to work hard and long,
someone who'll sing the company song,
someone who won't put too much of a strain
on the pension fund, so we can be sure that we gain
the maximum profit from the time they are here,
we don't want them costing the company dear.
We need to be sure time's for us, not for them.
We don't want them for life, just a short while, pro-tem,
to extract what we need while we're telling them how
when they're older and wiser then they'll have the power to make the decisions they think they can make
and of course we must tell them, for their own sake
that at the end of the day, when all's said and done,
they don't have the experience to know how to run
a company that uses the young and the strong
to help put one over the rest of the throng.
Finished at fifty?, perhaps its the truth
that those of us over the first flush of youth,
just need the chance to be able to say
that we're here, that we're needed and that is the way
to escape from the trap, get away from this cage
but maybe that's just a function of age.