No one can be that shallow! Can they?

On the way to steal the daily office newspaper

Death and taxes are the only things that are certain in life. Fortunately for us, we can manipulate taxes; which dissipates its burden somewhat. Just look at the deductions that everyday people are allowed to claim on their income tax; and the additional deductions people can make if they own a small business; and the additional additional deductions you can make if you are one of Australia’s wealthiest people who are able to afford the best lawyers and accountants to legally minimise tax whose fees are also tax deductible.

As such, this ability to influence taxes makes people not so scared of them. If that wasn’t the case, you’ll see people running around pre-financial year end doing everything in their power to minimise tax, a la, salary sacrificing to super, frivolous expenditure and the sheer number of sales versus buys on the stock exchange to trigger capital losses.

But for the other certainty: death; it is not so malleable and the only time people actually pay attention to it is when they realise they don’t have much time such as having a near death experience, discovering that they or a close one is ill or paying too much attention to the evening news bulletin. But the one thing that most people are scared of, even more so that death, is aging. The thought of losing ones’ faculties and beauty is enough to drive the multibillion dollar cosmetics and elective surgery industry all the while supporting Pfizer, makers of Viagra; and being bombarded by airbrushed models in our daily lives is not going to help negate that fear.

However, there is no need to fear death, and indeed, aging; and for this, I owe it to a fabulous woman. She has changed my view of aging, possible for ever. Her name: Germaine Greer.

"If I tell you this secret, will you sleep with me" said a very famous and powerful young Hollywood stud-muffin

"I’ll sleep with you anyway" was her response

The moral: Being old doesn’t mean you don’t get any

"But it all got too complicated, so I slept with his assistant instead"

The moral: You don’t have to be a Hollywood stuff-muffin to seduce old women

posted by tykang @ 5/17/2005 12:19:00 PM