This essay deals with new issues of the ancient business of getting old. The author draws both from books and from biographical experience. Topics include these cahallenges: - Medical progress makes us live longer, sometimes against the sufferers own wishes: What procedures are provided to navigate these issues at the present time? - Increasing longevity gives us the chance for continued intimacy and love, and the development of new forms of sexual gratification. What are these? - To deal with loneliness, we may accept nature's invitation for companionship, at the same time cultivating a...

Travelling to six destinations along the German North Sea and Baltic coasts, with an essayistic bend to studying geological and biological phenomena and to discussing both environmental and esthetic issues.