One of our whippersnapper dopers is freaking out over growing up (he/she’s 23).
I’d like to ask pretty much the same kinds of question of our much older dopers. I’m 53. I consider 50+ the “dying half of life” for the obvious reason. I understand intellectually, of course, that I could die in the next moment, and that that is always true, but there’s no arguing the fact that it becomes much more likely the older we become.Not to mention the fact that some major aspects of a rewarding life become less available as we get older, impairing the search for joy as well. (Sex, movement without pain, energy)
Among those who have actually had a problem with the fact of getting older and dying, who have had anxiety around it, (vs. those people who have always been pretty much at peace with it, and I’ve found over the years that there’s a remarkable number of you, lucky bastards) if you are over 50 and most especially if you are well over 50, as in 60, 70 and up… how are you feeling about it now? Do you find yourself taking the attitude that every morning when you wake up it’s a gift and you feel great about it, or are do you have a building dread or deepening depression about the fact that what remains of your life is shrinking very rapidly and your turn is almost over?
Do we have any active Dopers who are in their late 70’s, 80’s, 90’s? I am most especially interested in what people who are living at the upper end of a lifespan are going through.
I was deeply moved by the story of George Dawson, who obviously lived life fully every single day, and I hope to be like him.
FTR, some of my anxiety around the whole topic has eased for me in a very organic way that makes sense and gives me hope that by the time I have to really face the fact that my turn is really ending, I will be genuinely at peace with it. While I want to live my life to the fullest until it ends, I don’t want to go out kicking and screaming, either. So I hope I will be happy with each day right through my last, and I’m always conciously creating that for myself as much as I can, and this is part of it.
By the way, this is the one and only thing I’ve always envied about people who have a deep and unshakable belief in the afterlife and that it will be positive. And I happen to think that the desire to be at peace with death is 99% of WHY so many people have a deep and unshakable belief in a positive afterlife, but that’s a different thread in a different forum.
(For the psych majors: I’ve been freaked about death my whole life, and in a very disturbing way, I’ve been counting off my life since I was a child in a manner that has always felt very similar to the way one counts the days of a vacation or summer break:
Age 12 - well, right now it’s Monday of my weeklong holiday, I’ve got all week ahead… Age 20, well, it’s late Monday night. Age 30..still only Tuesday, five long days stretching in front of me before I go home. Age 40. Wednesday…Sunday night looks a lot closer. Age 53…wow, it’s already Thursday afternoon? And it has been a drag. I have no idea why I’ve always been like this, but a good friend tells me that she was there when I learned about death as a small child and she remembers that I fell apart for two days, my mother wouldn’t let me come out and play because I was such a wreck over it.
Of course now I understand, intellectually, that death is almost certainly the end of the conscious self of Stoid so once I’m actually gone it won’t have any suckage because I won’t exist to experience being dead- but that’s still really only an intellectual understanding, not an emotional one. In my gut I feel like death will be the world’s most miserable post-holiday Monday ever.)
