When I first imagined turning eighty, I hoped—if I got there--I would magically transform into a modest fountain of wisdom for people younger than me.
Once the Big Eight-Oh finally arrived, it came with nice presents and grand birthday wishes. Yet no transformation occurred. When I attempted to sound wise, only gibberish and wet-dog platitudes sprayed forth. Disappointed, I decided to secretly seek help from AI on how to at least become an octogenarian oracle's faithful assistant
Microsoft's Copilot assured me (after I queried) that "[t]urning 80 is a remarkable milestone, filled with wisdom, memories, and a unique perspective on life." But it offered no advice, not even on how to get an oracle's badge, ID card, or gimme cap.
OpenAI's ChatGPT, meanwhile, breezily advised that I should embrace eighty with "a burst of new efforts and interests." For example, it suggested I could take up tai chi (again?), get a new hobby (I have too many already), practice stress management (do naps count?), and stay in frequent touch with my healthcare professionals. That last bit was hardly a useful
Tomatoes and glass bluebird on a shelf in a window, Austin, Texas, 2023 - photo by Susan Lu
revelation. Collecting new and varied medical specialists had been one of my most active hobbies during my 79th year.
Now that I have actually reached--and passed--the admired and dreaded eight-oh milestone, I have divined at least one truth on my own without AI's help. Life is packed with questions that will never get answered, because there are no answers. We just travel along with them as fellow passengers on a long highway with infinite exits and countless dead-ends. And most of us, of course, have no control over when, where, why, or how we will finally skid off that road.
I've seen much, done much, and left many things broken or unfinished during my longer-than-average lifetime. Yet what good would it do anyone if I suddenly stood up and tried to offer free wisdom like an oracle at karaoke night?
I was born more than a year before the first atomic bomb was tested and long before television took the place of radio in people's homes. Some of my earliest life memories include hearing Harry Truman on the radio announcing the Berlin Airlift and learning how to crawl under my rickety little school desk so it would save me from Russian nuclear annihilation.
Years later, I attended Little Rock Central High School at the time when it was in world headlines. Then I served in two wars (the Cold War and the Vietnam War's infamous Tonkin Gulf area). Later, I spent some time being a semi-hippie freelance writer/poet/photographer. You likely have not seen much, if anything, of what I have ever produced. But some of it, I have been told, seems to be pretty good.
Along the way to this moment, I have survived open-heart surgery, been a husband and father, had marriages and relationships, lost loved ones to cancer and other diseases, gotten a few maladies myself, penned a few little-noticed books and poems, driven all over the United States in search of clear-cut directions for my life, and somehow found love again after I thought it was much too late.
Some of my schoolmates, childhood friends, and adult acquaintances have become rich and famous. And I could name a lot of well-known people I encountered or actually got to know during my salad days as a newspaper and magazine photojournalist. But none of this proximity bragging would give anyone any meaningful insights or useful wisdom for their later years.
What turning and continuing past eighty has brought to me--and what I hope means something to you--is a thought Martin Luther King Jr. vocalized back in 1964 when he was named Time's Man of the Year. I was not quite twenty then, and I had not read this until recently, while researching and pondering what I might say in this essay: "The quality, not the longevity of one’s life, is what is important."
I could be wrong, but as I approach eighty-two now, I think I've lived a pretty good life so far. And I may still have some time and space left to run. If you're not eighty yet, I hope you get there and get to pass go, too. With luck, pluck, and a roof overhead, it can be a great age to still be alive.
Si Dunn
Franklin, Massachusetts
2/7/2026