Does life get worse as you get older?

HA!

it seems illogical that life should generally worsen as we age tho. i blame society and the media for foisting this illusionary construction upon us.

Stevem otm. I'm so much happier than I was 10 years ago, I wouldn't go back for anything.

When it comes to money, more financial prudence on my part would have been nice, but I was never completely in a horrible state or anything. As it stands I still have something and while the nature of life around here is expensive, for the moment I'm doing just fine. But I think after next year something or some things will likely change, and I'm already looking into that.

I hate to embarrass Nicole a bit, but I find her situation and general balance of a lot of things to be something very admirable. And I'm very glad she's in a happier place all in all. :-)

(I'm 30)

A fine thing, but in ways I feel like I'm not yet out of that stage, and in some ways am also just entering into it, or rather finding it change and take on new forms (many of my social circle have left OC but new friends and other people come to the fore, for instance). Personal experiences will always differ, and in particular I find the range of possibilities open to me with my work in writing something that continues to expand -- in a small way, sometimes tentative, but always there.

i think if i'm old, alone and POOR it'd really suck

Actually I do feel smarter now at 44 than I did at 18. I remember being young, and the main feeling was 'I want to be a writer, but I don't know what life is about, and my writing seems naive. I want to be a lover, but I'm so nervous, and girls all like older, more confident men...'

stability
Emotional stability does increase as you get older. Financial stability... well, in my case no. And no children... yet.

Our bodies fall apart
This is true. Systems stop working so well. I have low level tinnitus, I lost an eye, I have a bit of a chesty cough that doesn't seem to go away... nothing major, but you just don't feel as good in your 40s as you do in your 20s. Entropy is unavoidable.

our horizons narrow
Oh, I don't think so. I think they broaden. You know more things, you know more people, you travel. I moved to New York when I turned 40. I absolutely wasn't going to rot in a house in London. Travel, travel, travel. Projects, projects, projects! Stay interested in people, in the world, in life.

death is no longer so distant as to be ignorable
I was terrified of death when I was younger, in a lie-awake-appalled sort of way. Very visceral. Now I'm not.

the excitement's gone
Not at all.

we're not so sexually attractive
I'm now more sexually attractive than I used to be. It's terribly unfair, but men remain attractive for a long time, and the world keeps filling up with more and more young women who are potential partners.

life goes stale
Very much not.

our parents die
Not so far, touch wood.

our friends drift away...
Not if I drift away first, ha ha!

Also, I'd add that with the passing of time, human ingenuity brings us amazing things like the internet, which didn't properly exist when I was in my 20s and which is probably the most important development of my lifetime. Of course, bad stuff comes too -- the biggie this century is going to be climate change.

Mm. Something that I've been VERY glad I've been able to do, though certainly I think they've been within generally preset horizons much of the time, so that's something to note. On the flipside -- tying in with the Net observation Momus makes -- the Net has specifically enabled me to do things like randomly wonder via this board about going to New Zealand, have a lot of very kind people offer to help and host, and having a spectacular time all around. Similarly my visit to Venezuela, an experience that was incredibly welcome in many different ways. Italy next year will be similar, and so forth -- the ability to sheer impulse travel would be a delight, but I am not in the position to do so, and do not feel regret over it since I couldn't in the first place, at least not now.

*ducks*

I'm getting noticeably uglier as the years go by.

Utter nonsense.

this is rubbish - how can having more skills in one area be a limiting thing? it's whether you want to or not.. i mean, give or take forgetting some, you won't know any less about being a doctor then you did at 20 when you have been studying computers all your life.

I'm 44.
Don't ask me before next spring.

Until then,
could as well ask Mom...
Oh!
Mom''' has spoken ''ready.

My point was, Ken, that when you're younger, the world is a wide open landscape, then ultimately you choose which paths to go down, and to a large extent, those choices define you, for good or ill.

I think one comfort as you get older is to take satisfaction in what you've done, another good reason not to faff around too much when you're young.

Momus, I think there can be an element of self-delusion in the "middle youth" phenomenon. What do you think the 22 year old girls you meet in clubs *really* think of you?

If this is true (and I don't think it always is), it's probably because the "you" in question didn't make any goals while young and feels an overwhelming sense of anxiety and dread brought about by realize that "you" are getting older and still haven't done shit with "your" life.

I know I'm between what appears to be the accepted levels of young and old in this discussion (I'm 30), but I quite agree with Momus and Ned.

I've not had much chance to do a lot of traveling in my life, but there are many things I'd never have accomplished had I not had the 10 extra years, and it places me in a good position to accomplish more in the next 10. Or the next 20.

If nothing else, 30 year-old me can stay in a relationship for longer than 6 months (and appreciates staying in it). 30 year-old me with a guitar can play the idea I hear in my head without having to think about it and pick it out a little at a time the way 20 year-old me did. 30 year-old me isn't swimming in money, but his paycheck is an order of magnitude bigger than the ones 20 year-old me was bringing home.

And don't get me started on the internet or the power of computers now that I'm older. My life as an musician changed completely when machines got fast enough to run VSTi and DirectX virtual instruments... As purist as I am about all that analog electronic garbage, I did eventually retire that reel-to-reel 8 track. Which is nice cause now I can stop lugging that fucker around before I get old enough to have a bad back.

I agree completely.

Momus, I think there can be an element of self-delusion in the "middle youth" phenomenon. What do you think the 22 year old girls you meet in clubs *really* think of you?

Regardless of the answer to this question (which obv. only Momus can give), I'm pretty sure Momus intended for "middle youth" to mean considerably more than "meeting 22 year-old girls while a man in your 40s."

What do you think the 22 year old girls you meet in clubs *really* think of you?

Well, I'm not going to chase anyone who's not showing clear signs of interest. And yes, I did mean more than that. I meant a general sense that life skills at 45 are pretty much the same, these days, as life skills at 25. Just that you've had more time to brush them up and get them right. Being older now is a question of being more practised at being young. I suppose this is based on the presupposition that you keep your youthful looks and figure to some extent, which I'm lucky enough to have done so far.

financial security is an illusion - stop working and see what happens

more sexually attractive - delusional and unsustainable

increased wisdom - possibly...but case not proven. And it can be hard wisdown such as 'I really should have chosen a job I enjoy day after day'.

life begins at 40 is OTM:

26 - 35 is the best time: you have some money and the feeling of (almost) limitless possibilities.

After 35 - options are generally limited, and you tend to become stuck in the same pattern. Not bad necessarily, but not as much fun.

Sorry to be so negative.

*bows* I wouldn't mind your slenderness in turn = we can call it even (maybe?).

Heheh... Here's the place Momus and I part ways in thinking on the technology + music = yay equation. Maybe if they put tubes in laptops...

On the other hand I do have a Stratocaster with an extra pick up in it that tracks incredibly well as a MIDI controller. The idea that I'd have been playing a sound module with a normal guitar isn't something I'd have thought possible when I was younger.

The thing about choosing a path and following it when you get older includes the benefit of really becoming good at some things. Whether or not you win awards or get recognized is beside the point... I mean being good enough to do what you want to do as often as possible. As I get older I find that What I Set Out To Do and What I Actually Pulled Off get closer and closer to the same thing. And becoming better at one thing does not mean you don't improve at others.

There is something to be said for the jack of all/master of none state, but if you can start to approach master of one or two, there is also a hell of a lot to be said about that state.

My hair started thinning when I was 21. It reached a stasis when I was around 25 or 26. I don't think about it much any more, though Ned's hair can bring on jealousy in even the most steadfast of men.

On the other hand, I have sideburns...

We have Jiffy envelopes here too. It's just that we call them all "envelope" regardless of brand.

Okay, I've stressed that enough.

(sorry if I seem as I'm picking on you, I'm not really)

I drink it regularly, but I've never done it for reasons related to aging. Would consumption of green tea perhaps cancel out my smoking habit? Cause I'm still looking for something in the equation that makes the smoking inconsequential.

It's great because luckily I still look young, and furthermore, the middle youth phenomenon means I can still act young too!" Hardly a ringing defence of getting old!

Yes, it's a bit like saying being a woman is great because you can act like a man and pass for one if you put on a fake moustache!

I was listening to the radio the other day and I heard a BBC interviewer asking a Palestinian 'Why do the Palestinian people revere Yasser Arafat so much when he never achieved the goal he set out to, a Palestinian state?' That question seemed almost rhetorical. It seemed to contain an interesting perspective. Arafat stayed relevant right up to his death precisely because he had a goal yet never reached it. Failure and longevity are intimately connected. Only the successful become irrelevant.

I think it's also a question of attitude. If you've convinced yourself life stops getting better as you age, you probably will end up as miserable as you wanted to be.

Most true, as Momus has noted. I don't think it won't get better, at the same time I have to be cautious over regrets of the past eating away at me -- they're not constanstly corrosive, but they do cause me to mentally seize up at points. Almost exactly three years ago, in particular, it left me near mentally paralyzed.

Also, as I've talked about a number of times, a while after that I went through an extremely bad case of pure shutdown over what I enjoyed best -- music -- in that I felt the entire world seemed addicted to a constant 'now now now' pursuit that required one to keep up or leave go (a feeling also prevalent regarding other things in art I enjoyed, but there particularly). When exploration feels like a requirement than a pleasure, then I tend to react very badly.

Combined with other feelings I've talked about elsewhere -- jealousy, measuring oneself against others, etc. -- it is important to realize that one can't constantly do this to oneself. Not unless you just want to stop. Sometimes the promptings and reminders have to be strictly internal but so long as you can balance out a sense of keeping a positive focus on without doing something like, say, locking yourself into an all-or-nothing plan, then you will always have the chance of being constantly and pleasantly surprised.

I think life just sorta stays the same with the odd bit of happiness and sadness along the way.

I feel better today. So, no.

She would have been forty in two Sundays' time.