Old Men in Shorts - versus growth in old age

A phenomenon that has swept my part of the world over the past couple of years is old men out and about on the streets and in shops, wearing shorts - or what Americans call "short pants" - ie. short trousers. 

This used to be very rare, except at the height of summer and on holiday - but nowadays, it's clear that old men have - in droves! - set aside their long trousers, and taken to wearing shorts all the time and in all seasons. 

This weirdly-misguided and counter-productive assertion of continuing youthfulness; fits with the theme of  a thought-provoking post from Francis Berger where he discusses "growing old" with an emphasis on what kind of growing this ought to entail:

"Growing old should refer to the spiritual—that we should use old age to focus on changing, developing, and expanding our spirit; on reflecting on our mortal lives and our memories; on learning lessons yet unlearned; on tying up loose ends and neglected frays from our mortal relationships; on preparing and building up our “self”, our true “self”, for resurrected life."

While the sight of superannuated codgers in cut-off trews seems like a trivial inconvenience, merely an eyesore; I have nonetheless come to regard this as symptomatic of a deep and increasing the spiritual resistance to growing old; which is one of the besetting sins of modern Western civilization. 

The reason is obvious enough; that, without a confident expectation of continued personal existence beyond death - a post-mortal life that is affected by present life; then there really is no benefit but many disadvantages in getting-old, and no viable coherent prospect of growing-old. 

The life of the modern middle-aged and elderly person (including, so far as I can tell, nearly all self-identified Christians) is then inevitably some kind of combination of an always-losing battle to remain (or seem) youthful; and a progressively-increasing terror of physical deterioration, suffering, dying, and then annihilation.