My dad often says to me "Getting old stinks, don’t do it". I think I’m starting to catch on to what he means. Birthdays force you to think about things you don’t want to think about, they force you to come to some realizations. And I use realizations, because unlike new years resolutions that are goals, realizations are an after the fact you can’t change them. What I came to a realization about this time around was pretty big for me – I learned what the difference between being young and being old really is. 
 
I’m in China on a shoot right now, and on the cover of one of the big national newspapers is a huge image of a young woman crushing a ping pong ball. The national ping pong (yes I know some people call it table tennis but here they say ping pong so for now I do too) championships were being held in Guangzhou and I guess it was hot news. My initial reaction was condescending boredom, but after my quick flight to Guilin, and walking by crowds watching the games on TV, and a bus ride to Yangshuo, where we drove by kids playing ping pong on anything they could find, I came to the realization that maybe I was the one who hadn’t figured out how cool ping pong was.