When I think about Marc Blesoff, what springs to mind is the world’s largest Jewish leprechaun. Possibly the world’s only Jewish leprechaun. Marc, who writes the Conscious Aging column in our Viewpoints section each month, celebrated his 75th birthday last week at ComedyPlex on Lake Street. It tells you a lot about Marc that he would celebrate at a comedy club, but it fits. Living three-quarters of a century is an achievement worth celebrating. Doing so with your sense of humor intact and without losing your exuberance for living is an even greater achievement, but that’s Marc, whose purpose in life (at this stage) is to give aging a good name.
To honor that achievement, I resurrected my favorite collection of quotations, Age doesn’t matter unless you’re a cheese, compiled by Kathryn and Ross Petras. Here is a selection of wisdom from the ages about living a full life:
There are only two ways to live your life: One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. (Attributed to Albert Einstein, though with quotes one never knows for sure, but it also applies to Marc Blesoff, who lives according to the latter.)
All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible. (Novelist William Faulkner)
I’m at the age where food has taken the place of sex in my life. In fact, I’ve just had a mirror put over my kitchen table. (Comedian Rodney Dangerfield)
Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience. (Writer Victoria Holt)
Never retire! Do what you do and keep doing it. But don’t do it on Friday. Take Friday off. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, do fishing, do sexual activities, watch Fred Astaire movies. Then from Monday to Thursday, do what you’ve been doing all your life, unless it’s lifting bags of potatoes off the back of a truck. I mean, after 75, that’s hard to do. My point is: Live fully and don’t retreat. (Comedian Mel Brooks)
In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves. (Novelist Saul Bellow)
As long as you can admire and love, then one is young forever. (Musician Pablo Casals)
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. (Playwright Samuel Beckett)
Live your life and forget your age. (Pastor/Writer Norman Vincent Peale)
The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been. (Writer Madeleine L’Engle)
One must wager on the future. To save the life of a single child, no effort is superfluous. To make a tired old man smile is to perform an essential task. To defeat injustice and misfortune, if only for one instant, for a single victim, is to invent a new reason to hope. (Writer Elie Wiesel)
A man is not old as long as he is seeking something. (Biologist Jean Rostand)
The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped. (Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer)
What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner. (Writer Colette)
What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. (Last words of Blackfoot warrior Crowfoot)
The present is the ever-moving shadow that divides yesterday from tomorrow. In that lies hope. (Architect Frank Lloyd Wright)
And finally, it seems only appropriate for a birthday party in a comedy club to give the last word to (arguably) America’s greatest comic:
Last night I had a typical cholesterol-free dinner: baked squash, skim milk, and gelatin. I’m sure this will not make me live any longer, but I know it’s going to seem longer. (Groucho Marx)
No, wait! Too dreary. Let’s give the last word to feminist Susan B. Anthony:
The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball — the further I am rolled, the more I gain.
No, wait! With Easter and the resurrection story upon us, let’s give the final, final word to a scientist, Edward Teller:
When you get to the end of all the light you know and it’s time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: Either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.
Happy birthday, Marc, and to all of us as we consciously, exuberantly and, sometimes humorously, age.