Living ripens verbal intelligence

I recently ran across the following except from a Kerouac novel, while reading a Jonathan Ames essay:

... and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, becuase the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "awww!"

I see less and less such people these days, and that leaves me rather depressed and prone to become a bit recluse when it comes to social gatherings. I reckon when I was younger, and those around me were just as young, in our mutual attraction, we mostly confused the youthful exuberance with the glow that comes from a mad-to-live spirit. As the that veneer tarnishes over the years, just as women seek to hold on to the vestiges of youthful appearances in the latest creams and fashion, the men turn to the material possessions and social advances, mistaking the drive as honorable vigor, which, in reality, is driven by insatiable greed and incessant insecurity.

My favorite evenings these days are ones spent with friends who still burn, burn, burn... and in their company I am humbled by the grace that surrounds my life; that even during the most wayward days of my youth, my life was full of chances for friendship, meaning and conversations that survived the test of aging.

Passing of time and what it does to one's beauty is not what devastates -- it's the aging of the spirit that truly saddens me.