Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677). Water Colour 1987. Tomas Brusell / Brusell Art.

My father was reading the memoirs of general Lewenhaupt and found the general, who gave up the Swedish Army at Bender 1712, as neurotic as himself.

My father has now passed 80 and its a good thing to have enough time for reading - one should perhaps concentrate on growing old?

When I meet the old guys of close families, Svend Höst, Åke Cronvall and John Brusell I think they seem to be more cultivated than ever, as well as playful and comfortable absentminded. 
It's good to see that there are thrilling aspects of aging.
In Norway, the 90-year old Arne Naess is in the public eye, with his frequent media appearances and philosophical book publishing's in which he goes to Spinoza and interprets him with the sharp eye of the falcon, finding the functional, the elegant and humoristic philosophical intentions 
It's fun to be one of many Norwegians who have read Arne Naess´ "Philosophy of Life" and "the free man" both books published in the end of the last millennium. 

Arne Naess is concerned with  reinterpreting the Master of Thinking - Baruch Spinoza, after many years of mountaineering in the mental company of Ludvig Wittgenstein, once stuck on a barren rock, no way out!. 
"Somehow I managed climb to safety".
The material body of Arne Naess is tired and old but the soul of his is soaring at the heights of the Dalai Lama and other spirits of the living modern world.

Old Age might be interesting.