「趁年輕，多做愛」，這一半是比喻，一半是真心話。
事情是這樣，朋友去曼谷拜四面佛，遇到也去拜的台灣男子，年過五十，頭髮禿一半，問他求什麼，很直白回答說，希望每個月做愛兩次。朋友把這當八卦笑料，我聽了心中有感，從前我也常飛來飛去，泰國熟悉得像自家廚房，但三年前開始，曾相安無事的先天性心臟問題明顯變嚴重，發作起來，血壓暴衝還眩暈 (vertigo) ，站都站不住，被醫生提醒別搭飛機，而且也擔憂在國外發病怎麼辦。人生誰知明天會發生什麼事呢？一位大帥哥學生昨天坐了輪椅來，騎電動車摔車，他說事情太突然，倒地一剎那，剛巧另一輛車從旁開過去，離他頭部只有幾公分，我們都慶幸他只是斷了腿。
即便無災無患，人生就像春夏秋冬，春花沒開好，到了秋天落葉，再後悔也無益。我很喜歡 Robert Frost 的一首詩 "An Old Man's Winter Night" ，全詩是這樣寫的：
All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him — at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off; — and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man — one man — can't keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It's thus he does it of a winter night.
很寧靜安詳的詩，而仔細玩味，這孤單一人的老者在夜裡有什麼？一盞孤燈，如此而已。他只能看看外頭的雪，獨自睡，這已是最大幸福。我們準備好過這種認命的生活了嗎？如果還沒，那麼，趁年輕多做愛，做想做的事。
