“One might as well grow old when all your generation do,” said Marilla, rather reckless of her pronouns. “If you don’t, you don’t fit in anywhere. Far as I can learn Lavendar Lewis has just dropped out of everything. She’s lived in that out of the way place until everybody has forgotten her. That stone house is one of the oldest on the Island. Old Mr. Lewis built it eighty years ago when he came out from England.”
Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery.
Do we drop out of everything if we don’t want to subject to our generation and age? Are societies conservative? Does being beyond your peers' usual route of life deprive you of anything? Or gives you advantages?
Pro:
You do what you want, not what society dictates.
Con:
Your peers feel sorry for you and don’t understand you.
Pro:
You dare to do what they don’t.
Con:
You might think that you have stuck in some age.
Pro:
Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others as Virginia Woolf said.
Pro:
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing (George Bernard Shaw).
Do we deceive ourselves saying that age matters? Or do we want to match society and be linked to the majority? What if the age is not a matter here? Might it be self-perception and self-acceptance?