LIFE IS A SERIES OF MATHEMATICAL TASKS

From birth to near the end of middle age, life, hopefully, for most there are more additions than subtractions.  Proof is the guy with the beard hanging on the plus' sign everywhere.  His story of death and resurrection add hope and faith to believers. More learning, more successes, more joy, more relationships, fewer subtractions of all those. The 'take away' sign remains at the fast food drive in booth.  If Nature has not sufficiently endowed females, they can add to their boobs and both sexes can subtract from their noses.

By the time the 'Golden Age' arrives, the process reverses.  The take away becomes real.  Friends become ill and die, professional identity shifts to a 'I used to be a...'; the source of  income lessens, energy wanes, bodies begin to wear out.  The major addition in life are now medical specialists and funeral attendance.. 

However, while that picture may seem bleak to a youth, it needn't be to the graduates of being young.  While youth rarely know what their future will actually be.  Seniors are all sure their next step is oblivion...no more to add or subtract.  There is a certain peacefulness in that knowledge, even though one might do everything possible to stave it off.

We grow up and many of us multiply by adding a partner or having children as our fertilized cells divide.

We have now added in-laws then some of us divorce and divide.  From a houseful of family, the children grow up and get subtracted from the original household.  They go on to add, multiply and go through the same steps again.  The calculator to do these processes in now part of the new technology. We pick our partners by signing up to a dating service to match us to the perfect partner. Our senses get subtracted gradually. We add cataract surgery and hearing aids.  We subtract teeth and add implants.  But now our math is done by Nature.  All those years of studying math in school, algebra and geometry as well, get quickly forgotten if you don't need it on your job.  I now understand why it is so frequently advised to "Let Nature take its course'.,