Thank you for that Ursula. I'm not old yet but I will be any minute. It does not look like that much fun to me. But the deep conversations? Yup. I am down with that.
There's a difference between old and "old"; the connotation is that the old are beyond value, passe, unworthy of respect and attention. But, I submit that "old" suggests, at least a little, the ability to survive in a changing world.