When I recently turned 60, I realized with alarm that I was starting to see unmistakable signs from friends and colleagues that I was becoming—there’s no easy way to put this—boring. It was almost as if the same stories I had told a hundred times were no longer interesting to them. It wasn’t like I had anything new and exciting to tell them. That’s when it hit me: I didn’t have anything new and exciting to tell them. I had stopped evolving, and I think we all know what happens then—like the dodo, you stop flying, get fat and Dutch sailors eat you on their voyage home.

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