The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Reading the story of Benjamin Button had me analyzing about the world today, and how our minds think about the elderly people now-a-days. I believe this is the first time that I have read a story about someone being born old and dying young. It had me thinking and I would imagine that Benjamin would have feel isolated and rejected by society just like many people do that in today’s world towards elderly people. While reading the story I was saying to myself, “Wow, one day I am going to be an elder in a matter of years.” Also, about how much these people have done something for us in any kind of way. For example, serving World War I and II. At one point, many of them put their lives on the line for us to be where we are at right now. I, personally love sitting down with elderly people and just hear their stories, it just amazes me at times. It is incredible how much wisdom these people have! One day I was having lunch at McDonalds with my roommates and this man of approximately 65 years of age came up to our table. He started showing us how he buys coins and start cutting them in half and making the coins do some crazy things. He said that was his hobby. Suddenly, he just started talking about what he did for a living, he did something with nuclear missiles  as a career in the military. So, he just started talking about what he did and I honestly felt dumb when he started talking about how to fire a missile and hit the exact spot that they wanted to hit. I felt like he was a math genius in some sort of way, he started talking about trigonometry and about the circumference of the earth, and then do pie (3.14), then something else. I had to ask him to repeat it at least two more times after that because I was so lost! After listening to his stories, it made me realize that these people are not as dumb as we think they are just because they are old. I believe that we are born as a baby and dying like a baby too if you get to that age because it has the same procedures; they need someone to bathe them, most of the time they need to use pampers, and be watched at all times. In conclusion, this story has made me appreciate elderly people more than I did before.