Getting Older Isn't What You Think
229 comments
·May 7, 2025lisper
flatline
I agree about the clickbait. As I come up on 50, however, I think there are a number of axes on which we can analyze aging.
Chronological age: there is no getting past getting older, you will age and it will be increasingly apparent with time.
Grooming and style: you can, nonetheless, choose to date yourself with your clothing and overall presentation, or not. This can be overdone and make you stand out “trying too hard” not to be old. But there’s a world of middle ground.
Physical: a mix of genetics, nutrition, exercise, access to medical care, self care, and luck. Some people slow down much more than others. Some people, like the author, simply choose to, having been relived of the expectation that younger folks be very busy.
Mentality: do you want to look at younger generations as an alien species, or do you want to deal with people as people and acknowledge that while we all have different backgrounds, new perspectives have their own value. I find I can still relate well to people of about any age. At some point mental decline may rob me of that, but I won’t stop while it’s in my control.
Interests: do you mostly enjoy media and activities particular to a time when you were younger, or do you have a penchant for novelty despite your age?
englishspot
> Grooming and style: you can, nonetheless, choose to date yourself with your clothing and overall presentation, or not. This can be overdone and make you stand out “trying too hard” not to be old. But there’s a world of middle ground.
for the longest time, I've resisted the zoomers' attempt to bring back 90s/early 00s fashion with oversized shirts and baggy pants, hopelessly clinging to my millennial sensibilities (I like my fitted shirts and skinny jeans, dammit). then one day I just said screw it and bought new oversized shirt and it kinda grew on me.
I'm not going full zuckerberg with the gold chain and whatnot, though.
throwanem
I'll go on wearing clothes that fit, thanks. Eventually the children will come around. In the meantime it's hardly as if they aren't noticing all the gray in my hair, so why act the fool by behaving as if I didn't? And clothes that fit look good.
const_cast
You know what, I'm gonna say it: skinny jeans were never flattering, especially so for men. Even worse when they were low-rise. You're telling me I get to look like I'm shorter, fatter, and have skinny little chicken legs? Well... don't sign me up.
I'm very pleased that flares and high(er)-rise pants are coming back, kinda. With worse materials, unfortunately. Now if only we can have colors that aren't some variation of gray or blue...
spacemadness
I’m GenX and I hate that this style is coming back, even though I wore my share of baggy pants. It’s not really even the same style, it’s just warped through a second distillation via capitalism and I don’t think it looks that great.
WalterBright
> do you mostly enjoy media and activities particular to a time when you were younger, or do you have a penchant for novelty despite your age?
I have negative interest in the superhero movies, so there's that. I don't care for the modern style of shifting the colors to blue/orange. Movies from the 70's have a natural look to the colors.
I prefer 1970s music. Autotune is for whippersnappers.
I yell at clouds a lot, too.
alabastervlog
I'm "only" 40 and strongly prefer films made when they still shot and edited on film. The peak as far as visual quality and overall effect of film, for me, was probably the 60s through early 90s, though I love a bunch of films older or newer than that.
The constraints of not being able to color-grade the whole film with a slider or two, of every cut in the edit taking time to do, and of effects that weren't in-camera being relatively expensive, tended to lead to better and more-interesting filmmaking, even in middling films.
I appreciate what the right people can do with modern tools—I enjoy and even love plenty of newer films, and it's undeniably brought some cool stuff within reach of smaller, cheaper productions—but overall I see it as making cinema worse.
"We did it in a computer" being the answer to every "how'd they do that?" isn't movie magic, it's boring as hell. It's why even a film that tries to avoid that to some degree, like the new Dune duology, is in some important respects—though setting aside overall quality of the film on some other dimensions—just less interesting than broadly similar films like Lawrence of Arabia or Star Wars (or even, if I may be so bold, David Lynch's Dune).
I think this sort of opinion is fairly common among film-fans of all ages, due to interest in film making itself as much as output of the process per se. Not sure most movie watchers care, and they may well prefer the newer stuff because of the ultra-fast editing and tuned-to-be-cotton-candy-appealing color schemes and unconstrained video-game camera of fully CGI scenes and all that.
> I prefer 1970s music. Autotune is for whippersnappers.
Hard agree. I can't friggin' believe the heavy-handed autotune in children's media, especially (Daniel Tiger! Fred Rogers would be so unhappy with it). Let's teach them that natural human singing voices, like their own, sound wrong and bad. WTF.
tremon
I'm mostly a child of the 90s, and I prefer 70s music too. The music scene of the 80s and 90s was soulless (pun intended), at least when it comes to mainstream cultural presence. When I think of the music of my youth, the terms that come to mind are vapid imaging, bland instrumentation, and unimaginative lyrics. I guess you could say I was old the day I was born :)
The music did not get better with age either; that music is now old enough to enter "classics" radio stations, which means those stations now alternate between nostalgia and nausea for me. The only redeeming quality those songs seem to have is that they can get even worse, as judged by recent covers/remakes of earlier failures (really, how barren must your musical taste be choose to cover Liquido by Narcotic?)
That's not to say that nothing good came from that period; it's just that good music from that time was not successful. I had great fun in the 2000s and 2010s discovering the bands and artists that should have been big in the 90s.
I have no problems with the movies nor the cartoons of my youth though, those are still the best cinema ever produced.
UncleOxidant
> Autotune is for whippersnappers.
Yeah, WTF is up with that. It's autotune everywhere now. It was originally intended for some limited uses and it wasn't supposed to be obvious. And now it's obviously everywhere. I suspect it's going to make it easier for AI vocalists to take over.
readthenotes1
Somewhat ironically, HD killed cinematography.
Because there's enough clarity to see set errors, everything important is filmed in the dark.
Examples: just about every fight scene since 2018; Castle first season vs last.
One of the reasons why Shogun was so appealing is they did something different.
nunez
As far as interests go, I like old and new music all the same.
I try to stay current with what's charging, even though I don't like mainstream media much. So much music these days trends on social media, which I no longer participate in, but Apple Music does a good job of tracking what's hot.
scarface_74
> Grooming and style: you can, nonetheless, choose to date yourself with your clothing and overall presentation, or not.
One thing I admittedly do is stay clean shaven and bald so the gray hair and receding hairline don’t show. But I’ve had the latter since I was in my mid 20s.
I had a (White) former manager tell me years ago that no one can tell how old Black guys are that are clean shaven. I never realized that.
The old joke is that it’s the lotion…
nunez
Yeah, going bald definitely helped me, though I think I aged into the look. (I went bald at 21 by mistake; it looked hella weird then).
I didn't like my hair. It didn't grow very long and, because I'm a side sleeper, I would wake up with super compacted hair that was itchy. I also didn't like paying to wait 30 minutes to make small talk with barbers about shit I didn't care about. Mach 3 all the way.
I _have_ to have a lotion routine. Otherwise my skin will turn dry and gray and feel rough and generally horrible.
At the moment, I use Palmer's shea butter body oil while I'm still wet from the shower, then I top it off with Palmer's coconut butter formula. I used to make my own shea butter lotion, but it was a fair amount of work and takes a while to dissolve into my skin.
flatline
I have not seen a clip of a young Bill Burr in ages! Now that he is bald, he is my doppelgänger.
Viktor Frankl also claimed that staying clean-shaven made you look younger, and attributed it as one factor in his survival of the concentration camps. He used a piece of broken glass to shave.
poulsbohemian
Shaving can definitely help you stay younger looking, but there's also something to be said for the silver fox look. No question I get more attention from women today than when I was 20. Take good care of your body and skin and you can be good looking at any age.
scarface_74
> Interests: do you mostly enjoy media and activities particular to a time when you were younger, or do you have a penchant for novelty despite your age?
I have been into hip hop and rap since the mid 80s. I was a fitness instructor until 2012 right before I turned 40 and had to keep up with modern music of all types depending on the audience.
I’m not one of those that think all new music sucks since I’ve seen the evolution over three decades, I do still recognize the new generation that actually has talent - can flow with the music, have clever turns of phrases, not overproduced, etc. My 22 year old (step)son shares his music playlist with me and pick out songs out of his list and add to mine just so I can relate to him.
criddell
I'm 55 this year.
Getting junk mail from the AARP made me feel old. Especially when I opened it, saw the free trunk organizer and discounts and thought that's a pretty good deal.
It's weird for me to think that I was born 25 years after WWII and today, 25 years ago was 2000. A year ain't what it used to be.
betterThanTexas
> Getting junk mail from the AARP made me feel old.
Not only have I been getting AARP mail since I was 25, but you can actually join at any age. It's worth considering even for the relatively youthful.
drewcoo
The senior center a mile away from me has weekly Scrabble afternoons! I was delighted to find out about that after being shocked to know that I'm eligible for membership.
amanaplanacanal
The one near me is called the "50+ center".
WalterBright
Wait till you realize the commercials for the shows you watch are all for old people medical problems.
layer8
Just watching something where you get commercials already dates you. ;)
jsqu99
i'm 55 in 10 days. I get a discount at the golf course!
criddell
On the plus side, we were born in what I think was the greatest time to be born. Kids in the 70’s, teens in the 80’s, and were in our 20’s for the 90’s. We knew the world before computers were common and watched (or helped) network the planet.
dowager_dan99
You can likely join your neighbourhood seniors org too!
somenameforme
I never, still don't, really feel like I'm old or even getting old. Yet somehow, at some point, I started referring to twenty somethings as kids. Not sure exactly how I reconcile the two, but maybe learning to accept our own inconsistencies is another part of this whole not getting old thing.
lifestyleguru
> Yet somehow, at some point, I started referring to twenty somethings as kids.
I never started doing it intentionally but at some point I noticed they are all about self confidence while in reality they have no knowledge or experience. Which can be catastrophic when you entrust them with something important. That's when I started calling them kids.
asveikau
There are definitely days where you notice it suddenly, even if the buildup was gradual.
I'm younger than you, but recent years as the gen Z kids come up there have been more of these moments accepting that my cohort is increasingly less of the star of the show.
dowager_dan99
active male who's now 51; I disagree a bit about it "sneaking up" - at least for me. I noticed a massive decline in just a year or two, where I started commenting "I feel old" a lot more.
The delta isn't so different, but there are lots of things where I feel an inflection from "improving" to "flat or declining" and that is extremely noticeable. To me that's what aging is, and it happens FAST.
mr_toad
I knew I was getting old when shop assistants started calling me ‘sir’.
WalterBright
I ask for the old fart discount.
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jtwoodhouse
Any decent headline can be accused of being clickbait. The entire point is to get the reader interested.
klank
I personally try to avoid attempting to manipulate interest and instead capture existing interest. In this framing, clickbait is something headlines can be accused of.
ne0flex
A couple years ago I renewed my passport. When the new passport came in and I compared the picture page of both, I went through a similar feeling (basically comparing my 20YO to my 30YO) noticing the bags under my eyes getting darker and just general expression looking more docile. After having my first born, my hair began to gray fairly rapidly (thankfully no balding yet) and when I look in the mirror, sometimes, it just feels odd.
WalterBright
It gets worse every time you renew it.
_rpxpx
Bollocks, honestly. When I was 23, I had a girlfriend turning 20. At her birthday party, her friends were talking earnestly about how "depressing" [sic] it was to turn 20. Then one of them pointed at me and said with obvious consolation, "well, at least we're not old like Richard!". When I turned 28 I felt depressed about being old. I went to sit by the river with a friend, and one of his friends who came too had just turned 23. I sighed internally, "oh to be young again, to be just 23!". Shortly after I went to my great aunt's birthday party. She was turning 85. She asked me how old I was. When I told her, she said, "28! A mere spring chicken!". From that point on, I decided never to care about how old I was. For 95% of your life, possibly more, there is someone who thinks you are old, and someone who thinks you are young. Don't think about it, work on the assumption you're young enough to do whatever you want, and give it a shot. You're really only old when you're dead.
djeastm
Yeah this is the perspective to have. If we ever want to feel young again we can go visit with older relatives.
What I fear is the day when I have no more older relatives. I hope I can be as serene about aging as my grandparents, who are in their 90s and have very few of even their friends left, nevermind relatives.
antirez
I'm 48 and one thing I universally notice, among my friends, is that they don't understand that GAME OVER is near and they should hurry up and do what the want to do. Instead they still feel like they are young, taking me sometimes for crazy for saying: now we are old, there are, if we are lucky, 20, 30 good years ahead of us. So let's use them at our best.
podnami
Often the wants dissipate over time. One craves sleeping in, having a coffee and not arguing with your spouse. Sure if you push people they might confess about abandoned dreams, but my experience is that most people over 45 are quite content. Maybe it’s a Swedish thing.
tvaughan
Can relate to both. There aren’t a lot of winters left where I’ll be able to ski. The future no longer feels infinite. I do not have all of the time in the world to do the things I enjoy. But, and my younger self would be very upset with me, I am very happily done with the hussle.
> But these days, there’s nothing lovelier than a Saturday morning with a bit of jazz or classical playing, pottering about the kitchen, and then being tucked up in bed before 10pm. Wild.
Play with the dogs. Smoke some weed, a nice meal and play cards with the wife. Don’t need much more.
mattgreenrocks
I definitely have fewer wants, though they tend to be more expensive (guitars). I notice that a lot of things I used to really enjoy kind of fall flat for me now, notably metal concerts and video games. Still like both of them a lot, but they don't do as much for me.
The things I want tend to be hard to buy in the first place: autonomy/independence of time, more time with my parents, better skills as a musician, a more kind and patient heart. I think at some point I developed a taste for the long game, the type where there is no limit on improvement.
californical
It’s definitely a Swedish thing. I have some friends there and have visited your country, and the quality of life is incredible and people seem very happy, even if they don’t outwardly show it (people also seemed very private).
I lived in a nearby country for a couple of years and very quickly, the culture of Northern Europe pulled me in. People still want to improve themselves and their communities, they work hard at things they value, but don’t seem to be too bothered by small details or things outside of their control. It’s a very healthy culture - something I can’t say about the current state of my country (USA).
spacemadness
I think I’d choose that over the more American version of panicking when you’re 48 due to not hitting some culturally driven metric of success. An example of desire causing needless suffering.
lr4444lr
> and not arguing with your spouse
I dunno, man. "Gray divorce" is rising, and I don't think Sweden is an exception to that.
yCombLinks
Maybe that's because these people don't want to argue with their spouse, and these couples are unable to achieve that.
shswkna
I would argue that the sentiment
>> GAME OVER is near and they should hurry up
still lacks the maturity that comes with age. Or take it as a compliment - you are not there yet. Taking this too seriously also diminishes the quality of our brief existence
alabastervlog
I don't think it hurts to remind oneself sometimes that "today, I'm the youngest I'll ever be for the rest of my life..."
bachmeier
> there are, if we are lucky, 20, 30 good years ahead of us
Not sure about that. You should expect serious health issues to start between 65 and 75. That doesn't mean your good years are behind you. You're in "running out the clock mode" when your mind goes and you physically can't do things like walking without assistance. That's late 90s for the lucky ones.
ilamont
"If we are lucky." For some, it's even earlier.
In my high school text chat of 5 people now in their mid 50s, 1 is a leukemia survivor, 1 has various chronic health conditions associated with PTSD, and 1 is about to have a quadruple bypass.
3 spouses also have serious health challenges, including cancer and organ transplant.
6 out of 10 with major health issues. Mid freaking 50s.
Wondering when my number is going to come up.
aaronbaugher
My small town newspaper has about 3-4 obituaries a week. Most of them used to be my grandparents' generation. Now most of them are my parents' age, but an uncomfortable number are my age.
The first girl I ever danced with (8th grade, "Beth" by Kiss) died a few years ago of some medical condition. A neighbor who was a few years behind me in school died last year. Had a headache, told his family he was going to lie down, had a stroke there on the couch. Yeah, you start thinking about it.
bachmeier
This is all true, but heart surgery is one example where you have a serious health issue, yet (probably) many good years ahead of you. It'll limit your ability to do physical things like climbing mountains. It won't stop you from having an enjoyable life or accomplishing meaningful things.
scarface_74
Out of my 8 people that were in my college crew and we graduated 1995-1996: one is in great shape and is a fitness instructor, I’m in above average shape, 3 never work out, two have passed and one has disappeared. He was morbidly obese in college (not a judgement or insult, just a fact). The rest of see each other once or twice a year, we went to college in our home town so we all have family there
marcuschong
I'm about to turn 40 and only this year it hit me that maybe my wildest dreams of success won't come true, and that I don't have eternity to try it. This gave me a terrible sense of emergency, and I'm working like crazy and also much more focused.
psunavy03
Making use of one's years is a good mentality, but the idea that "GAME OVER is near" in your 40s is a bit overdramatic, barring being hit by the proverbial bus, getting terminal cancer, having a heart attack, or something along those lines. 30 years is a long time . . . at worst, you have half your adult life still left to live, if not more than half.
antirez
Well, 48 is 50ish more than 40s, but I understand what you mean: I believe that if I would not enter such mentality ASAP I wouldn't do many things I'm doing in recent years. To trigger it too late, is too late: a constant I see in creative challenges is that you need to have physical strength to write code, write a book, do traveling with family, ...
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nrdgrrrl
[dead]
Damogran6
Our conversations amongst ourselves turn to our ailments. The bell curve of people that pass before you do starts to accelerate. My skin, with the help of the sun, has twice tried to -KILL- me.
But the biggie were the veins in my legs. The valves are giving out, my feet are too far from my heart. 15% of my blood isn't getting properly oxygenated.
And then I got that taken care of. A procedure for a thing my father had (he passed 20 years ago)...and I'm really sad he didn't experience it.
Because the treatment made my feel 15 years younger. My balance is better (a factor of the nerves now getting oxygen), my foot and knee stopped hurting....and what gets me is both how much BETTER I feel, but that it was my body WEARING OUT.
Wilfred Brimley (a name that dates me merely by mentioning it) was my age in Cocoon (look it up, kids)...that was where all the old, used up, worn out people found rejuvenation.
I don't feel that old...doubly so now that my circulation has improved.
But you and I both know of 90 year olds that are 'younger' than some 60 year olds.
scruple
> But you and I both know of 90 year olds that are 'younger' than some 60 year olds.
I once had a rough hike at Half Dome that went deep into the early morning hours (a friend, who was an experienced alpine climber, made the horrible decision to bring his girlfriend at the time who had never even been on a hike before but was "in shape," and so they thought it would "be fine" -- it was NOT) and it was a total mess. We make it back to the trailhead around 2AM and a van pulls in. A 95 year old woman got out with her support team, they were starting the hike up so she could catch the sunrise from Half Dome.
RealityVoid
I'm curious, what is wrong with the veins in your legs, more exactly? My dad, 68, has periphery artery disease and, well, it sucks.
Damogran6
There's something like 6 one way valves that let your heart pump the blood out of your leg a little bit at a time. When they wear out, there's not enough pumping action at times to replace the blood as often as necessary. (also, the veins aren't rated for the pressure, which is why they blow out, and you get varicose or spider veins.)
But there are alternate paths for the blood to flow. If you mangle the larger deep veins, the blood will still circulate out secondary paths. And literally the next day, my foot was pink, and I wasn't winded climbing the stairs, and my legs weren't lead weights by the end of the day.
Qem
> There's something like 6 one way valves that let your heart pump the blood out of your leg a little bit at a time. When they wear out, there's not enough pumping action at times to replace the blood as often as necessary.
Shouldn't we be able to replace them with man-made ones as they fail, like already it's possible to do with heart valves[1]?
RonSkufca
I am 53 and I have 2 teenage children and work with mostly Millennials and Gen Z, and I can honestly say I prefer hanging out with people younger than me. I have dinner/drinks with various friend groups consisting of 50-60 yr olds and all they seem to do is complain about the following: Health, Politics, Younger People. And the conversation inevitably turns to telling stories of the glory days. When when I am with younger people, I see there is still hope, ambition and energy. I know it’s all part of the aging process but many of these older friends are reluctant to leave their little domains and try anything new. I feel like a 35-year-old trapped in a 50 year old’s body.
ryandrake
I feel the opposite, hahah! I'm about that age, and I feel I relate less and less to people 10-20 years younger than me, and more and more to people 10-20 years older. To make a probably unfair and way-too-broad generalization: the Millennials I know (like the parents of my kid's friends at school) are kind of... aloof at best and self-absorbed at worst. When the kids play together, those parents never make an attempt to socialize or be pleasant. They're either buried in their phones or they just drop their kids off and skedaddle. The grandparents on the other hand are a blast to hang around with. Social, friendly, engaged, and interested. I feel I have a lot more in common with them, too.
scarface_74
A lot of people over 40 are burdened - kids, soccer practice. My wife and I at 49/50 are empty nesters, I “retired her” at 44 she is pursuing her passion projects, I work remotely and we are always traveling, gone for extended periods.
We are also gym rats. We have friends that join on us our trips when they can. But no one in our cohort has the complete freedom of movement that we have.
The older retired people that have the freedom we have are too (small “c”) conservative and don’t have to deal with us and I am not about to use a filter when I go on vacation or hanging out.
We also have friends where one works remotely. But the other still has to be in an office. We kind of have to live our lives to our own music.
My parents are 80 and 82 and they are independent now. But I realize the day is going to come where we’re going to have to responsibilities for awhile.
jillesvangurp
I turned 50 last year. I'm biased to glass half full rather than half empty. I noticed a lot of my friends mentally checked out around their forties already. I've been trying to not do that. Fifty is just a number. It doesn't mean anything. There's less left of your life every day after you get born. Some die young, some die old. I could die tomorrow, I could go on existing for another fifty years. I'm an optimist. So, glass half full and plenty left to do and experience. There is a bit of urgency to get shit done because the clock is ticking. You do get more aware of that as you get older.
You don't really get wiser as you age. Just scarred by experience. It takes me longer to do some of the things I used to do quicker. And I'm also doing things that I wouldn't have been able to do earlier in my life because you learn a lot as you progress through the years. It's a mixed bag.
I actually like what I do professionally. So, I'm not looking forward to retiring. I'm actually kind of dreading having to do that because of physical limitations or being regarded too old by others. I plan to stay active as long as I can. Regardless of financials. What comes after that is basically waiting to die. Nice if you can make that enjoyable and stretch it a bit. But for most people that's not a huge part of their life, or the best. Or what defines them for others when they are gone.
WalterBright
I like Benjamin Franklin's approach for making lists of his faults and then working to correct them. The idea is to reach perfection on the day of your death.
I work on my list of faults every day.
betterThanTexas
Doesn't sound very healthy, tbh. Also takes an extraordinary amount of courage to be that confident in your own assuredly-flawed judgement. All it takes is one person changing your mind to ruin your life.
WalterBright
Sorry, that doesn't make much sense.
MattPalmer1086
A saying that increasingly resonates with me (50's) is that inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.
I think this idea that you become a fundamentally different person as you age is wrong. Things do change - the physical changes of ageing suck, mentally I'm more at peace than I was when I was younger.
But I'm still basically me. I would love for us to solve the problem of physical decrepitude with aging. Even if we lived no longer.
90s_dev
> You stop performing. You stop pretending. And that’s freedom.
Reminds me of a talk Ian McKellen gave somewhere, where he says that we're always wearing costumes and acting.
I can relate, I've acted when I was younger, to try to fit in, be acceptable, make friends.
A while ago I stopped caring. I have no friends on earth, and I'm fine with it. The few times I tried to connect with people while allowing myself to fully be myself, it never worked.
I wonder if they were still just acting.
alabastervlog
You might like Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre by Johnstone, if you've not already read it.
It all of: lays bare the "masks" we wear and the "status games" we play in everyday life; explains the importance of dropping certain common "masks" and various status-related hang-ups to achieve a child-like egolessness and vulnerability, in order to access real creativity; and, further, the liberating power and social-connectedness creating effects of playing with and in masks and status-games.
It's also a really short book, which doesn't hurt.
(here "masks" and "status games" are terms Johnstone defines for his purposes, but what you can guess from context is probably close enough to his intended usage for this post)
manmal
Have you considered you might be neurodivergent, and need similarly neurodivergent friends?
90s_dev
I'm not, but I see how it sounded that way. I'm just picky lately. I can relate to most people on at least something, and can make friends easily. I don't struggle with that. I just don't care about those interests enough to put the effort in lately, and I have few circumstances tying me to specific people anymore (neighbors, coworkers, family, etc). Maybe it's because of where I am in life, and my current responsibilities. [edit] For example, when it seems like you're near the end of your life, you think much more about bigger picture things, like your own mortality, the past and future, what mark you did or didn't leave on the world, love, truth, beauty, goodness, and a lot of heavy things that people generally don't want to talk or think about when they're in their prime and want to enjoy it.
bachmeier
The older I get, the more I've come to appreciate that "old" doesn't mean much. There are people in their late 30s that act like the median 60-year old. There are people in their 60s that act like the median 40-year old. Some people are inactive, less curious, and opposed to change early on. Others are active, curious, and always learning and growing even in their 70s.
garyrob
I'm 69, starting a cofounder search for a new venture in the blockchain space. I don't feel any less capable than I was. I suppose I may have a bit of acquired "wisdom". I'm wondering how much ageism will be in my way.
I've lived through a lot. Had some successes; also had cancer (I'm 8 years out from that and my statistical outlook is excellent).
I like to think of people like Clint Eastwood, still capably directing in his 90's, and Eliot Carter, who was still writing chamber music post-100 that gets performed. 69 is nothing.
scarface_74
I’m 50 and have no desire to start my own company. I work remotely, use my unlimited PTO to take 30 days off a year and travel with my wife extensively and we are scouting places in San Jose Costa Rica and Panama City, Panama next year where we can alternate and spend the winters as (the dry season there) and spend the rest of the year in Florida while we continue to cross places off of our bucket list.
I have nothing left to prove to myself. I have worked at 60 person startups all the way to BigTech - no longer there.
I definitely don’t plan to be grinding at 68.
garyrob
I wouldn't be grinding at 69 either! It has to be a matter of feeling like it's a form of self-expression.
If you feel your mode of expressing yourself is to travel, etc., then that's fantastic too.
blendo
In the 1980s, I very much took to heart Grace Hopper’s advice that it’s easier to apologize than to get permission. This suited 20-something me just fine.
Now I’m more in the camp of “Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment”.
sys32768
I am 54 and have tendonitis for two weeks after moving, so bad that I can barely lift a full coffee mug with my strong arm.
I moved three times two years ago with zero issues.
Also went to the ER with atrial fibrillation a year ago and now have a prostate cancer scare.
Also lost both parents in the last two years.
Age 44 was paradise compared to this.
Speaking as someone who is actually getting old (just hit 60) this is a pretty click-baity title. Of course it's a gradual process that sneaks up on you, and of course you slow down and value quiet more, and of course you start wondering what's the matter with kids today. Does anyone really expect to just wake up one morning and say to themselves, "OMG, I'm old today"?
(Actually, and somewhat ironically, I do remember a very specific moment about 20 years ago when I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a window on a day when I was not looking my best and thinking, geez, who is that old guy looking back at me? Surely, that's not me.)