Recommendations of the Editorial team
Bob Dylan has commented on the pros and cons of getting older in a rare guest post – The occasion was Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.
As the president turns 80 on Sunday (and celebrates the anniversary with a UFC gala), The New York Times asked several prominent octogenarians — including Liza Minnelli, Robert De Niro, Art Garfunkel and 85-year-old Dylan — for their thoughts on the milestone.
“The best thing about being 80 is surviving the clocks that were always breathing down your neck. It’s freedom from the lie that anything was ever under control,” Dylan said of turning eighty. “You’re no longer chasing the parade. You’re an ancient king from a vanished land. You’re harder to program.”
Old fire, tired body
On the downside, however: “The old fire in your heart still tells you, do this and that, but your body says, we already did that. Besides, nothing surprises you anymore. That sounds like luxury, but it’s not – and besides, you’ve run out of illusions,” Dylan wrote.
But “the real worst thing about being 80 is that you finally realize you’ve gained an understanding of something that could have changed everything in the past, had it come at a time when there was still something left to change. When you’re young, you think time is moving forward. When you’re 80, you know it isn’t – it’s standing still. We’re the ones moving.”
Unlike the other participants in the article, Dylan refrained from giving Trump personal advice on his 80th birthday. The avowed Trump critic Robert De Niro, on the other hand, insisted: “The president doesn’t listen to advice. He surrounds himself with characterless clowns who keep their jobs by supporting his every whim. If I could penetrate the shell of cruelty, greed, corruption and stupidity for a single piece of advice… I would advise him to get good advice from good people – and follow it.”
92-year-old Gloria Steinem had the briefest possible birthday advice for Trump: “Resign.”