Time's whirligig

Somerset Maugham said there were advantages to growing old, although he was unable to think of any.
In 'Antony and Cleopatra', Shakespeare gives us the line:
'Though age from folly could not give me freedom,
It does from childishness'.
If this were only true, it would be one benefit resulting from ageing, but Shakespeare also knew, when he talked about the seven ages of man, that we return to a second childhood.

It is true that some babies appear to be 'old souls', born with their boots on and they grow up to be 'young fogeys'.

In Henry 1V Part 2, we have the sad spectacle of Falstaff, who has been the young Prince Hal's 'boon companion' (they spent a lot of time drinking and wenching), cast aside when the new king assumes his duties.

In ancient Greece, silver heads were a sign of wisdom. At the age of fifty citizens were deemed to be 'Elders', their seniority bestowed by increasing years. Their goal was to lead an honourable life so that old age led to serenity.

W B Yeats, the Irish poet, spoke of old age as being 'full of sleep'.
In 'As you like it' the life cycle is likened to that of fruit:
'And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot',
which, whilst accurate, is not joyful.

When I was in college, one of the lecturers had a habit of quoting Marvell towards the end of the lesson:
'But at my back I always hear,
Time's winged chariot drawing near'.
This signalled that homework details were going to be discussed, thus taking us from the sublime to, if not the ridiculous at least to the mundane, a form of bathos which might serve as a summation of life's trajectory.