Working for Old Men

I am working on two translation projects now: another novel by Aharon Appelfeld and a personal essay about religion by Zvi Luz.  Aharon is approaching the age of eighty, and Zvi has passed it.  Both men are enviably clear-minded and active, busy and engaged in life.
I'm half a generation younger than these gentlemen, much closer to old age, if I make it, than to youth.  Working for vigorous older people like Appelfeld and Luz helps reconcile me to the prospect of aging and gives me hope that when I reach their age, I'll still have the energy and commitment to think hard and create.
These authors have been through a lot during their lives, and they have been pondering the serious and deep issues of the human condition for a long time.  Aharon has been an author for fifty years or more, writing about the fate of individuals who are caught, tragically, in vast historical convulsions. 
Zvi was a professor of literature during a long career and has devoted much thought to the connection between traditional Jewish literary sources and modern Hebrew literature.  In the essay I'm working on, he seeks to clarify his ideas and set them in order.
I like working with people who old and more experienced than I am, and I sometimes wonder how much I can learn from a much younger person, which is not to say that I reject the insight and intelligence of young writers out of hand.  Since I've outlived Shakespeare, as well as a host of other literary geniuses, that would mean that I should stop reading them - an absurd idea.