Age

As we all continue to grow up, the simple number that binds us to who we are becomes more and more prominent in our lives - our age. For me, the most recent experience I’ve had with this was actually today, the day I turn 16. This means that I can finally drive by myself and do many more previously unattainable things. Age can play a factor in many different things, like where you live, what job you get, and what you do everyday. However, I recently stumbled upon a very interesting subject on the news. A man from The Netherlands is actually trying to legally change his age from 69 to 49, just to get more girls on Tinder. This first struck me as a funny joke, but as I continued reading, I realized that it was, in fact, not a joke at all. He claims that changing his age is no different than changing his gender. In my opinion, this is absurd and should not be allowed, but I can still see his point. 

“Time”, as we call it, is an abstract concept. Obviously, there are clocks and other things we use to keep track of it, but what would happen if we just one day decided that one minute was actually 100 seconds? It’s not like it’s not allowed or anything, since the only reason one minute is 60 seconds is because it is agreed upon by the entire world. Actually, there are many examples of differing time scales, like the Chinese lunar calendar.

Gatsby faces a similar issue in The Great Gatsby. “For five years... [they] loved each other”, but in the end, Daisy ended up marrying someone else. I think that if Gatsby lived today, he would also try and legally change his age to be younger in order to relive his past and continue to love her.