Last month I got a calendar from the company where I used to work. A friend and colleague still there, tramping the old hallways, sends me one each year. This particular calendar announced that the company would celebrate its golden 50th anniversary in 1998.
Life is tricky.
Most of the time, you don't know what kind of a life you're having until it's over. Our biological structure may even dictate this truism. Studies have shown that middle age reduces the ability to acquire and process facts, but increases the ability to synthesize rules and cross-linkings from facts already known. From the plural to the singular, first you have the experiences, and then you get Experience. Unfortunately, by the time you gain Experience enough to know what you want from your experiences, they're over.