Unlike a lot of writers who give you their top 10 lists of 2009 happenings, I prefer to face the future. We confront a new year, the year of the Tiger according to the Chinese zodiac. The tiger symbolizes courage to the Chinese, and courage is what the new year demands, for it brings us yet another year of aging.

Aging. There’s little you can do about it ultimately. You can diet and exercise, shun smoking, and do your best but it will get you down the road. Aging, sadly, does not work its beneficial magic on us like it does cabernet sauvignon. We’re not wines. And we’re not some cowhide to be tanned and preserved, oiled, and dyed like leather either.

That old saw, “youth is wasted on the young,” certainly holds some truth. Even though our bodies may be aged, we’re a lot smarter than many a unwrinkled, dark-headed youth, but the visible effects of aging will not be denied. The mirror doesn’t lie but there’s something even more telling than mirrors. Watching older folks you love age. The mirror just reflects how you look today. Your aged relatives? They show you what’s waiting down the road.

I don’t know if I’ll ever adjust to growing old. While I was Christmas shopping, a man in his 40s held a mall door open for me. “Here you go, sir,” he said. I didn’t care for that “sir” because I suspect he did it out of politeness and a good raising because my hair is white. The “respect your elders” thing. I appreciate good manners but a little voice inside said, “You look old to him.” And I don’t consider myself old at all.

What is old anyway? The French define “old” as anyone fifteen years older than you, and I think they’re onto something here. I’ve always found “old” to be a moving target. When I was in my 20s, people in their 50s looked old. Now I find fewer and fewer folks fit my perception of what is old. And me? Well, I guess I’m on that train destined for Over The Hillville and I’m probably on schedule.

We all look in the mirror and each January, our faces reflect the fact that we’ve succeeded in surviving another year on planet Earth. No wonder, the cosmetics industry and plastic surgeons make millions on our attempts to discover the fountain of youth. Gray hair? Dye it. Sagging lines? Try surgery. And whiten those yellow teeth while you’re at it. Wrinkles? Get some Retin-A creme.

It’s ironic. We consider leather jackets, luggage, and bags to be more beautiful if they sport blemishes: a crease here, a scruff here, a faint trace of a scar there. There’s an art to aging leather to give it a worn, handsome appearance: rubbing it against trees, taking a wire brush to it, bending, folding, and twisting it. You wouldn’t do that to your face and, besides, there’s no need to: sun, wind, and gravity will do it for you.

This business of aging is a baffling thing. We age in many ways. Universal aging encompasses the aging all people experience, gray hair, for instance. Probabilistic aging refers to changes that happen to some, not all, like the onset of type two diabetes. Chronological aging simply refers to how old we are, a straightforward definition. And then there’s biological aging: thanks to good genetics some folks weather biological aging far better than others.

You cigarette smokers, want to defy aging as best you can? Put down your smokes. You folks with limp muscles. Hit they gym. That will truly give you a new look.

I bumped into a vivacious blonde at a Christmas party. She had a totally new hairstyle unlike the one she’s had for years. “I’m turning 50 soon,” she said. “I need a new look.”

A new look. Lots of people go for that come January. About this time of year I see a lot of would-be runners on the trails. I hear of people joining spas, and some finally decide to diet. It’s all intended to prolong life and to slow the aging process.

If only we had the age-defying abilities of certain plants and animals. No living thing possesses immunity to aging, but some organisms can stretch the process out for unbelievable lengths. Galapagos tortoises can live up to 150 years. Most living things seek to live as long as they can, but the Galapagos tortoise is an amateur at best.

The longest living tree species in the United States is the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine. One bristle cone pine, Prometheus, was believed to have been well over 4,700 years old when an unbelievable thing happened to it. In the 1950s, dendrochronologists (a fancy word for scientists who count tree rings) were looking for the oldest living trees to study former climates, date archaeological ruins, and assess just what maximum lifespans might be. Donald R. Currey was a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studying the climate dynamics of the Little Ice Age. And so, he counted himself among those who count tree rings.

In 1963, he learned of bristlecone pine populations in eastern Nevada’s Snake Mountain Range. He was convinced some very old specimens existed there, cored some, and found trees more than 3,000 years old. He was unable to get a good core from the tree named Prometheus. He figured it to be very old. Stories differ as to why he did what he did, but he cut the tree down to cross section it. And so he began counting the rings and the counting went on and on and on. I can imagine the queasy feeling that must have invaded his soul as he kept counting rings.

He had cut down the oldest living tree in the world. Since then, other older trees have reportedly been found. Thanks, in part to Currey, the United States Park Service keeps the location of the now-known oldest tree, Methusela, secret.

So here was a tree doing its level best to live, to defy aging, and a man with good intentions cut it down. He stirred up a tremendous controversy that ultimately helped protect these ancient trees. Currey enjoyed a successful career despite the notoriety of killing the world’s oldest tree and he, himself, died in 2004 at the age of 70.

Currey is not alone in such wellintend blunders that bring the aging process to an early end. In 2007, British marine biologists found what well may have been the oldest living animal, a clam. A team from Bangor University in Wales was dredging waters north of Iceland as part of routine research when a clam species, Arctica islandica, the ocean quahog, was hauled up from waters 250 feet deep. Only after researchers cut through its shell (with rings like trees) and counted its growth rings did they realize it was between 405 and 410 years old. Like Prometheus, its days of aging were done.

And us? Well, we can at least age gracefully. Accept your fate with poise and a steely determination to keep yourself fit, but know when to quit. Resist the temptation to fight the battle when it’s long lost. Nothing is uglier than an orange-haired sweeper, Daddy Warbucks, with a cosmetically enhanced, puff-lipped woman, Dame Gold Digger, on his arm. Together they set civilization back decades.

Living long, extremely long, is possible. Officials in Kazakhstan believe they’ve found a woman 130 years old. Her birth certificate and a census report validate her age. There’s some debate, of course, about her true age. And so some Kazakh officials (politicians) are pressing for detailed checks on her claim, fearing the country could face ridicule if her age isn’t a fact.

Thank God, people don’t have age rings. Those Kazakh politicians might ask some scientist to kill this ancient lady to pinpoint her age and better understand how she’s managed to live so long.

Email Tom with feedback and ideas for new columns. tompol @earthlink.net