Love has no age. It's a cliché that contains one certainty—there are different types of love, for every stage of life—but anyone who has fallen in love as a teenager knows it's a unique experience. Fortunately. If we had to experience the same fireworks, the same roller coaster, and the same despair over heartbreak we experienced when we had acne our whole lives, we wouldn't be able to bear it. Creativity and talent are also traditionally associated with youthful energy and curiosity, but in this case, the passing of time means that experience, technique, and patience compensate for the loss of vitality. So an artist can be brilliant at 25 but more productive and wiser at 50.
And what about power? The exercise of authority seems destined for the adult generations, so a ruler in his early 40s is considered young and with a long career ahead of him. In fact, there are many societies and civilizations that have allowed themselves to be governed by councils of elders, who in Rome were called sex (hence Senate and old age). There are cases of precocious young people who conquer dominant positions before their time – such as Alexander, our James I or Napoleon – but in general we have tended to reserve places of power for experienced people – men – supposedly guided by common sense.
Increased life expectancy has delayed the onset of what we consider old age. However, I find it hard to accept that the world is ruled by a true gerontocracy. Donald Trump is 79; Netanyahu, 75; Putin, 73; Xi Jinping, 72. Is this a merit of our time, or a flaw? Is it good for humanity that its destiny is in the hands of people—men—who have a rather short life span?
Sophocles said that those who grow older are those who love life the most. Perhaps so. But they are also those who have the least to lose from long-term decisions, those with the most reason to be skeptical, those who perhaps, most lucidly, see that, ultimately, the world never changes and that, therefore, the only thing that matters is personal glory. Younger leaders, on the other hand, can be more enthusiastic, more connected to new realities, governing without the urgency of knowing that death is stalking them. But they can also be deluded; they can be inexperienced, impetuous, or dazzled by a too-rapid rise.
What fascinates me about our septuagenarian leaders is their fitness level. I've just turned sixty—the age at which, as a friend once told me, "if nothing hurts in the morning, you're dead"—and I feel like I've long passed mine. prime both physically and mentally. In a recent interview, I was asked if Jordi Cuixart's prophecy about October 1st ("We'll do it again") would come true, and I replied that those who "would do it again" would be others. That my generation was burned out, and that I don't have even half the energy, the optimism, or the passion that I possessed during the most hectic years of the Process. And I have 19 years left to reach Donald Trump's age—if I make it!
Congratulations, then, to these grandparents who have managed to reach such respectable ages with enough energy to govern large countries. Who knows if it isn't precisely power that gives them the necessary vitality. But they'll have to be careful: The world of technology—which is also, in part, the world of money—is in the hands of much younger people. It's a world that increasingly has more direct control over our lives, and also over politics; and it's evolving at an unimaginable speed. This drift toward technocracy is a real possibility, and I don't know if it combines well with gerontocracy. Digital fences like me, of course, have nothing to lose.
