As Fred Pohl said (not sure of exact quote) “science is the most exciting spectator sport”.
Now, if somebody would just get a clear unification of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics…?
String theory seems to be a dead end; it’s been thrashed for over 40 years now without any useful predictions.
We need a new brain. Pity we can’t clone Archimedes.
The other day I saw this really old man – overweight, white goatee, wrinkled face and not standing up straight. I had to wash the mirror to see if that would help bring the appearance back to what I was expecting to see, but unfortunately not.
My mind keeps playing tricks on me and I remember running faster and doing more than I probably was actually capable of doing, but time has taken its toll.
I was talking to a friend whose about my age, and we agree that we’re likely better than average but it’s still a shock to not outrun the wind or ask for help with the really heavy things. I was on a dragon boat team, getting up at 4:30 am four days a week to workout, and then several months of inactivity and I feel I lost 10 years.
They give senior discounts to skiers at 60 here!!! I almost paid full price just out of stupid pride.
I’d WAG that part of feeling old is the decrease in abilities from youth. For me at least that leaves me at advantage: maintaining the physical abilities I had in my youth is a low bar!
Well sure. First of all if you don’t have kids, you generally don’t have another human living with you showing you how old you aren’t. It’s one thing to think like you are 30 when you are 50. It’s another to have a 20 year old kid.
If you don’t have kids or a regular mate (let alone a “problematic” one) you also have all the time in the world outside of work to do as you please. And if you use that time to go to the gym, eat healthy, build relationships, and so on, you will stay physically healthier longer. I have a few friends and relatives who never married or had kids and they are essentially living the same lifestyle in their 40s and 50s as they are in their late 20s and 30s.
I don’t know if people actually ever feel “older” or if they continue to feel the same and the current crop of young people just feel different and are into different things. I mean I feel like I’m maybe 30, but it’s someone who was 30 in 2002.
I feel older than that mainly because while I may not be old enough to be wise, I am at least a bit less of an idiot.
I am not old enough to be wise, but I am old enough to know that I am not wise.
Looking back now, I regret the way I treated some grown-ups, assuming they were these super-mature sages of wisdom, it wasn’t fair to them. I recall that when I was 7, I would ask this 17-year old girl super-tough religious/psychology questions (to me at the time, 17 was wayyyy old and grown up) and she would get flustered and give her best try at answering, and I’d be disappointed at how weak the replies were. It wasn’t fair to her at all; 17-year old me sure wasn’t mature or wise either when I got to that point.
When I was 12, I wondered why some man in his 40s behaved more like a 20-year old, and now that I’m near 40 I totally understand it.
Ditto.
I recently started going to the gym twice a week, plus 1 or 2 walks a week. My energy levels are definitely going up.
But I can’t do late nights. Just one will cause me issues - a second one will basically destroy my energy levels and make me feel even older.
Seeing a child grow up really helps remind me how time is passing. My neighbor’s child now has children of her own, who can walk and talk.
So, physically, I feel a bit older than my real age, due to poor choices in the past, which means I am overweight and am not active enough. I’m doing something to change that. I look younger, though.
Brainwise? Definitely 10 years younger - I can’t be THAT old.
Real age? Early 50s.
I just turned 55 years old, but I feel about 25 years old. It’s getting more and more difficult, however, to maintain that illusion when I look in the mirror.
Our friend’s birthday was yesterday and when we were dropping off her kids I joked with her that she’s finally turned 26. Her oldest is 12 so it was a safe bet that she wouldn’t be insulted. Her first-grade girl overheard the conversation and asked her mom if she really is 26. Sure!
I’m 40.
Last weekend, someone told me I always seem so youthful to them and I don’t know what that are even talking about. I feel freaking ancient. I’m exhausted at the end of every day and I’m injured in two places right now and I don’t even know how I hurt myself in either case. I don’t know how I could feel any younger given how old my bones feel. And yes, the preK child is just rubbing things in. The kid fell asleep on the floor the other day and it hurt to watch him.
Mentally I feel like I’m deteriorating. An older buddy of mine said people like us who used to have exceptional memories are just freaking out when age inevitably brings our memory down to average. I’m not sure what I think about that, but I definitely used to have an excellent memory and definitely do not any more. And my ADHD seems worse in some ways. Perhaps because I have a million more responsibilities to keep track of.
I think the main thing is to keep your interest in many things. I’m a musician, a (retired) computer programmer, and a spectator (as Fred Pohl once said) of many areas of science.
There is much to learn all the time. True, my knees aren’t as good as they used to be, but I want to stick around to see what happens next. For mental floss, brush up your calculus, perhaps?