Is it more common to circle the wagons and live in the past…
… or is it more common to mellow out and adopt a live and let live philosophy?
How might one adopt the latter himself or try to convince others that the latter would be better?
Having hit 60, I have a live and let live philosophy, and I cannot wait to see what happens tomorrow. The past is done with, and I cannot change it. Furthermore, life has changed so much that living in the past is impossible.
I don’t understand the question. Is it about conflicts others?
You can be (do?) both. I know of entire neighborhoods of senior citizens who are perfectly fine with gay couples getting married, moving into the neighborhood and smoking mairjuana as long as they stay the hell off everyone’s lawns.
I’ve mellowed out and have more of a live and let live policy. My husband is the opposite. The older he gets, the more he circles the wagons and clings to the past. I don’t think one way or the other is “prevalent” - I think it depends on the person. As for how would I convince someone to change their outlook? I can’t. That’s one other thing I’ve learned. That, and there’s no percentage in looking back (as I said in another thread.)
Get off my lawn!
+1
I’m 62 and:
- still play games I learnt 50 years ago
- approve of gay marriage
etc
What are you asking? 
I’m almost 60, and I embrace the majority of the ‘new’. No, I don’t personally care for hip hop, for example, or EDM, but I listen to new music just as enthusiastically as I did in my teens, and there’s a lot of it that’s exciting, energizing, and fresh. I don’t get excited about styles of dress, although I am glad neither of my boys opted for tatoos and am not wild about the ones my daughter-in-law has. She’s a fine person and a great mother to my grandson, so that’s what really matters to me.
I don’t understand the tyranny of the minorities that is sweeping the world at this time. As a child of the '60s, I support what you do, even if it’s pretty far out there, as long as it doesn’t negatively impact anyone else. Heck, “If it feels good, do it”, was a mantra of the time. But I honestly don’t understand why, if you want to let your freak flag fly, I have to celebrate it, legalize it, applaud it, and award it. I’m ok with what you do, but I refuse to go out and campaign for it. Just don’t get it, and at my age, I probably never will.
Tyranny of the minorities is permeating everything. Bicyclists refusing to obey traffic laws, yet attacking motorists verbally and physically if they don’t yield to the bicyclists, is one example.
If not understanding that means I’m getting old and fossilized in my ways, then I suppose I am.
As for lawns? Pfffft - mine’s out there, I water it, but if you want to come over, put up a maypole and dance around on it, I’m pretty much ok with that.
I’m almost 62 and don’t really know many wagon-circlers my age. The few who are, I usually ridicule good-naturedly.
Seriously, things are changing and I just have no interest in someone who can’t keep up at least a little. The old days were generally a lot crappier.
You’ve nailed exactly how I feel about aging (I couldn’t possibly have phrased this better). I was literally talking to my college-age daughter about this yesterday and tried explaining it like this:
Society needs a constant supply of villains for the anointed to rail against, and the rules are continually adjusted to maintain this supply. The constant cries of “Racism!” are a good example of this. When I was growing up in the sixties there were actual records sold disparaging blacks (Looking for a Handout) and I remember many businesses with 3 bathrooms. This is sure-as-hell racist by any definition. By the seventies some were pointing out the lack of TV, toys, etc for black kids and claiming this was racism. I thought “Yeah, I see the problem and this ought to be corrected”. But I wasn’t sure the executives at Mattel were really racists. A few decades later I buy a house in a nice 'burb to get my kids in good schools, and find myself being labeled a racist merely because of my zip code. To top it off, last fall my daughter was hurrying to a calculus test at her college and was publicly called racist for not stopping to join a Ferguson rally in progress. :rolleyes:
I explained to her I’ve spent a lifetime trying to outrun the accelerating definition of that word… And no matter where I place myself, no matter what ground I give, the vanguard-of-showing-how-much-we-care will always race past and drive the stakes in at a more distant point. And then look back at me and cry “RACIST!” again.
At this point in my life the label (and many others) have ceased to have any meaning, and I’m not moving any more. There simply is no position where the cognoscenti will say “good enough pullin, you can stop now.” I told her this is because those who shout aren’t trying to right a wrong, they’re filling their own need for villains.
I actually looked at your profile to see if you lived around here. Another reason for this long talk with her was eerily similar to your sentence. My daughter was hurrying to hand in a paper and parked in what was, debatably, a bike lane. Of course, this caused the members of the bikers-who-hate-cars community to arise in screaming fury. And as in any community of hate, the sinner must be punished. Her car and license plate were photographed, and placed on the university’s website along with calls to action. The poster pointed out the heinous sin of the unbeliever, and called for all who are pure and right to know the scoundrel walked among them. By day’s end, the vilification went on for three pages culminating with an aging hipster’s call for violence against her, and that he would give her a “beatdown” should they cross paths.
All this for a perceived parking mistake.
(The campus police later determined it wasn’t part of the lane, and no ticket was issued)
The upshot is that people always need someone to hate, and will adjust the rules to ensure themselves a steady supply. At my age I’ve defined my own morals and ethics, and it’s doubtful I will change much from here. Whether this is circling the wagons or mellowing out depends on the observer, I guess.
I have said for many years that the best thing about growing old is the ever increasing number of things you no longer give a fuck about.
When you’re on the downward grade, you have the luxury of looking around more.
Bike lanes? Great!
Curb ramps? - about 100 years past due - the Women’s Building in Golden Gate Park is built by the playground over 100 years ago. It has a ramp. It is original to the building, for baby carriages. The building itself was to provide new mothers a clean, warm, and private space to nurse. 100+ years ago.
Gay marriage - overdue when I was born.
Still needing work:
Right to Suicide
Respect for the people who pick your lettuce and strawberries
Limiting broadcast music to those who can actually sing. Auto-tune cannot mask complete incompetence.
A manner of disposing of the dead which does not tie up increasingly valuable real estate.
The Taj Mahal is a tomb worth the real estate. That enormous chunk of concrete, not so much.
And please - Rap may have been a necessary step - deconstruct music all the way to just percussion. Now is time to add a new instrument or two.
Please re-discover melody.
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Then let me recommend the Trouser Rollers website. It’s about a couple’s journey into old age and how they’re dealing with it. It’s written by them and (imo) is one of the more interesting accounts I’ve read on the subject.
I’ll be 70 in less than 2 months, and I’m totally in favor of gay marriage. In fact, I’m in one.
But there are things I no longer care about:
What others think of me.
Most politics, especially Republican.
Music without melody.
Fashion.
Latest movies.
Latest wars.
Who’s currently called a racist.
My lawn.
I have more important things to worry about.
I second the bolded part.
(On the other hand, since gay marriage has specifically come up, I will say that I am clinging to the past on my views of gay marriage. I supported it in 1980* and I supported it now! Hrmmphf.)
*or gladly would have, if we were even talking about it then. Were we? I don’t remember. I’m too old and I forget a lot. But I know that even back then I was upset by any hint that gays “deserved” to be treated differently.
I’m 75 but I’m not in a gay marriage. Other than that you’ve described me very well.
I’m mainly worried about remembering what my name is and where I live.
I can’t see why you can’t do both.
When you get old, you find that your bad memories mostly fade and the good ones give you a great deal of joy.
And you draw on your lifetime of experience and realize that you don’t know everyone’s backstory, so you don’t judge them the way you did when you were young.
I work with mostly people who are half my age, and I’m still interested in what’s going on musically. I like some of the newer music a lot. But I totally agree that rap needs to go and we need to get some people around who know how to write and sing SONGS, not word salads. Hopefully I live long enough (and still have my hearing enough) to witness that happening.
ETA: Hard rock needs to go too. Anything that’s just noise needs to be canned.