Ever heard of artist Rosalie Gascoigne? She shot to fame in the mid seventies when her exquisite assemblages catapulted her into the Australian and international art world.
The housewife and mother-of-three loved fossicking and salvaging unconventional items - such as rusty kerosene tin lids, road signs, bones and feathers - to transform into mesmerising works of art.
I recently read a small magazine article on her (she died in 1999) and was reminded of one detail of her life, as equally fascinating as her artistic methods - the fact that she only started to pursue her craft at the age of 57.
Around the same time I heard about a charming couple, Mollie and Geoffrey, who had gotten married at the ripe old age of 94 and 91, respectively.
They met in an aged care hostel and loved to explore the city's nooks and crannies together. Who would have ever thought that the place you go to spend the sunset years of your life could provide the setting for a wonderful romance?
I admit that these kinds of stories thrill me to bits. You know the ones about pensioners beating young men in gruelling marathons, or of precocious youngsters outsmarting adults in talent quizzes.
It may have something to do with my desire to support the outsider or the pleasure I get from a feel-good and wholly unexpected ending. Whatever the case, my belief in what I deem to be possible is challenged, if even for a moment, and there is a certain magic in that.
While these kinds of stories always bring a smile to my face, they also serve as a reminder of our tendency to pigeonhole people (that includes ourselves) based on age. We hold deeply ingrained beliefs, for example, that teenagers are rebellious troublemakers, or that older people are frail, less adaptable and technically incompetent.
But these negative stereotypes cannot explain why certain souls are prepared to discard the conventions of their age group and explore unorthodox ground. Their honesty and courage is, indeed, inspiring, but why are they the exception rather than the rule?
They needn't be, according to scientists at the University of Illinois. In a recent study of 40 people aged from 19 to 87 years old, they found that when it comes to focusing on a task, it's not the age but the brain that matters.
Using magnetic resonance imaging, the scientists determined that those who struggled more with a task simply had less white matter in their frontal lobes, a factor not based on age.
Findings like these can undoubtedly help to fight ageism, but perhaps the greater task for us is to shift our expectations of what it means to "act one's age." We generally assume that people should wade through life's major cycles at specified times - give or take a few years - in orderly linear fashion.
But does "acting one's age" mean that teenagers shouldn't play lawn bowls, or that middle-aged folk can't let their hair down at a trance party?
Can it mean that forty-year-olds shouldn't be allowed to work at fast-food restaurants or that mothers shouldn't be caught dead in figure-hugging mini-skirts? Why does everyone kick up a fuss when a Hollywood starlet takes on a lover 20 years younger than her?
The simple truth is that each of us are sculpted by the unqiue winds of our individual lives, from our environment and job, to our childhood and genetic history. It seems absurd then to behave according to general group patterns, especially as we are all born with the ability to shed old skin, change and move on.
The American baseball player Satchel Paige hit the spot when he wittily remarked: "Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter." And in another quotable quote: "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was?"
This latter comment reminds me of a close friend and former colleague from Kenya. Like many of his countrymen, my friend did not exactly know his age because in some African cultures, birthdays are not treated as particularly special days.
It is interesting also to remember that before humans discovered a way of keeping time, not much fuss could be made over the anniversaries of important events such as birthdays.
Today, birthdays are a significant milestone - an occasion for celebration, or commiseration, as the case may be. A male friend admitted that on the morning of his 30th birthday, he ran around the house in an emotional flap trying to prepare for work.
He proceeded to burn his new tie (a birthday gift from his brother) with the iron and then to burst into tears, all because he felt that he had failed to achieve what his peers had professionally and personally at 30 years.
The pressure of age hangs about all of us, whether we would like to admit it or not. But the next time you wonder about the practicality or sanity of doing something someone your age wouldn't, or shouldn't do, spare a thought for the Rosalies, Mollies and Geoffreys of this world and simply take the plunge.