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Aged people discover not only that the world does not want them, but also that they do not want the world. The withdrawal from one another tends to be mutual. I speak, of course, only of those who keep to Nature's rhythms, not of those modern creatures who ignore its message that age is a time for reflection, not bustling action; for severance of attachments, not for clinging harder to them. This artificial juvenility which they affect would have been pitied by Manu, the ancient Hindu lawgiver, who allotted four age-periods to each human life, the last for concentration on spiritual concerns.

-- Notebooks Category 13: Human Experience > Chapter 3 : Youth and Age > # 119