Yes, no matter how we defend ourselves against the outside we’re always licked by something from the inside. There’s no defense against betrayal, and we all betray ourselves.
But if we are truly happy inside, then age brings with it a maturity, a depth, and a power that only magnifies our radiance.
"We're very close to immortal, you know. The time mechanism keeps it that way."
"No, I hadn't known," said Boone.
"Inside the time bubble we do not age. We age only when we are outside of it."
Generations do not age. Every youth of any period, any civilization, has the same possibilities as always.
I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, and everything created in the universe. We were all made by the same hand, and we have the same soul.
It doesn’t change what we are to each other. It’s like there’s always been a piece of my soul missing, and it’s inside you, Clary.
You, yes, you, linger inside my heart
The same you who stopped us before we could start.
Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so old, but he is really always the same age, so that does not matter in the least.
If the inner psychic ground of our individual appearance were not always the same, there could be no science of psychology, which qua science relies on a psychic inside we are all alike,” just as the science of physiology and medicine relies on the sameness of our inner organs. […] The monstrous sameness and pervasive ugliness so highly characteristic of the findings of modern psychology, and contrasting so obviously with the enormous variety and richness of overt human conduct, witness to the radical difference between the inside and the outside of the human body.
The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we all believe that we are above-average drivers.