are you affraid of getting old?

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if yes - how do you cope with it?(trying to be in shape,plastic surgery,eating "right" etc...)
if no - tell us yr secret (repression,trying to see the bright side of it,zen philosophy etc..)

― Zeno, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:20 (eighteen years ago)

no, don't really care. your're still the same person on the inside.

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:22 (eighteen years ago)

ok,this is from from the mental expect,but what about the physical one (diseases...)?

― Zeno, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:24 (eighteen years ago)

i hope it's not going to be depressive..

― Zeno, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:24 (eighteen years ago)

My answer is "yes" / "buying nicer clothes."

― nabisco, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:25 (eighteen years ago)

you mean depressing?

no, not a whole lot. My mother has a load of health issues that I could inherit but I don't worry about them. What's the use? I can't really do anything to stave them off and worrying is never productive.

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:26 (eighteen years ago)

"buying nicer clothes."
good solution for almost every problem..

― Zeno, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:26 (eighteen years ago)

fear is the mind killer

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:26 (eighteen years ago)

It occurred to me the other day that I have absolutely no fear of death, and I look forward to leading a long life, but for some reason I don't want to get old.

So I'm only drinking water for the rest of ever.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:27 (eighteen years ago)

I am old.

― The Real Dirty Vicar, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:28 (eighteen years ago)

Undoubtedly I'll maintain my youth by trendsurfing well into my 70s.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:28 (eighteen years ago)

But umm for anyone who's not yet middle-aged, I think the main age-related worries are way less about physical or mental decline, and way more about having life-goal achievements that seem appropriate to your age, or wherever you'd previously hoped to be by that age. And assuming your lagging behind on this point isn't like a GIANT gap, the best means of coping tends to be to just keep working on whatever it was you wanted to get done!

― nabisco, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:28 (eighteen years ago)

no, alcohol.

― ghost rider, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:30 (eighteen years ago)

wait i mean yes, alcohol.

― ghost rider, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:30 (eighteen years ago)

I guess my only fear of old age is being incapacitated in some way and having to live out the rest of my life in a nursing home. ugh

― brownie, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:30 (eighteen years ago)

nabisco otm

― horseshoe, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:31 (eighteen years ago)

I also answer "yes" and try to combat it by using good eye cream and staying out of the sun. Seriously - I've been using eyecream since I was 18 and I don't have any crows feet at all.

Diseases? Well, I've been a vegetarian for 12 years and eat a pretty healty mostly whole foods diet. I also drink 2L of waters a day. I can't be too scared though because I still smoke and don't get nearly enough exercise.

― ENBB, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:31 (eighteen years ago)

Two liters = ENBB has DSL in the bathroom.

― nabisco, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:33 (eighteen years ago)

Pretty much.

― ENBB, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:33 (eighteen years ago)

At my old job a lot of people sat near the bathroom and I was so paranoid they'd think that I had some kind of serious urinary issues, I started using the bathroom on other floors so they wouldn't see me every 20 mins.

― ENBB, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:35 (eighteen years ago)

(Actually outside of joke-world 2L seems like a good day's worth. I'd guess most people, if you magically kept a glass of cold water within arm's reach at all times, would just auto-drink enough over the course of a day to bloat them up something fierce.)

― nabisco, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:35 (eighteen years ago)

I drink about that much water a day as well if not more. But one of my meds totally dries my mouth out and I go nuts if I don't have water with me at all times.

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:36 (eighteen years ago)

no, don't really care. your're still the same person on the inside.

goodness, i hope i can change a little by the time i start worrying about getting old.

― kenan, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:41 (eighteen years ago)

It freaks me out and I think about it a lot.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a82/bobbysixer/markesmithyoung.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a82/bobbysixer/smith-toothy.jpg

― Bob Six, Thursday, 5 April 2007 18:06 (eighteen years ago)

no, not a whole lot. My mother has a load of health issues that I could inherit but I don't worry about them. What's the use? I can't really do anything to stave them off and worrying is never productive.

Shit, you're not doing your name any service here! ;-)

I wish I had your attitude. But to answer the question, I certainly don't fear getting older. I worry more about what will happen next week. Age? Fuck it, the older I get, the better!

― stevienixed, Thursday, 5 April 2007 18:17 (eighteen years ago)

I had old parents and, always being self-conscious of how old they seemed compared to those of friends, I wonder if it made me unusually pre-occuped with ageing.

I remember seeing 2001 when I was about 12, and that scene at the end where the old person in bed knocks over a glass of wine gave me nightmares for a while.

― Bob Six, Thursday, 5 April 2007 18:17 (eighteen years ago)

mortals lol

― iiiijjjj, Thursday, 5 April 2007 18:20 (eighteen years ago)

My parents are older too, my mother especially. I worry constantly about her health and age and have always done so. I definitely think it's made me a little obsessed with ageing. That said, she's aged wonderfully which bodes well for me, I guess. I also worry about the fact that I will probably be older when I get around to having kids and therefore make them feel the same way!

― ENBB, Thursday, 5 April 2007 18:20 (eighteen years ago)

I don't think it's hard to take better care of yourself then Mark E. Smith did!

― dan selzer, Thursday, 5 April 2007 18:24 (eighteen years ago)

Shit, you're not doing your name any service here! ;-)

what do you mean?? truly, I don't think there's much I can do to avoid my mother's immune-suppresing Lupus if it's meant for me.

Kenan, there's a difference between maturation and aging.

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 5 April 2007 18:25 (eighteen years ago)

I'm excited; I can't imagine how I'm going to look as an old man. Hoping for "dignified".

― bernard snowy, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:02 (eighteen years ago)

I agree w/ Ms Misery on the heredity front, and my family has a wonderful assortment of things that could get passed my way. I guess I do fewer stupid things to my body--earplugs at live shows, not drinking til 4 am, trying to eat more fiber. I wear sunblock too.

The thing about getting old is that it happens to everyone, so I'm not really worried about it. I look forward to going gray, I've already told my husband that's when I'm going to dreadlock my hair. It'll be good to be a geezer.

― patita, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:07 (eighteen years ago)

I worry about getting as old as my grandmother. DO NOT WANT.

― Rock Hardy, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:12 (eighteen years ago)

I'm blase about it. Frankly I think I'm younger than a lot of contemporaries around here (then again 'around here' = OC = premature aging via stupidity).

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:17 (eighteen years ago)

I don't understand that reasoning Ned...I could move to Eastbourne (or some parts of Florida) where I'd be younger than a lot of contemporaries - but it wouldn't necessarily remove the feeling of ageing.

― Bob Six, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:21 (eighteen years ago)

I'm not so much afraid of getting old as I am dying. Having just turned 40, I'm at a point where I can comfortably imagine myself at 60 or 70. Death, however, scares the bejesus out of me.

― mike a, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:40 (eighteen years ago)

the way to get old quick is to become a rockabilly dude. the way to stay young is to keep buying the finest silk shirts and blur the lines of your sexual boundaries in an urban setting.

― rps, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:42 (eighteen years ago)

I spent a fair amount of time and energy during my twenties learning how not to fear death. It must have worked. I am 52, know I am going to die, and accept this fact as normal and expected. It could happen later today even. Fearing death will not change this fact by one millimeter.

― Aimless, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:56 (eighteen years ago)

i love going to the bathroom on different floors! its like an exciting indiana jones adventure!

― chaki, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:58 (eighteen years ago)

Aimless, my television has led me to believe that if you're sufficiently scared of death, you can run away from him, really really fast. (I am not that quick, so I am just trying to get incredibly good at checkers.)

― nabisco, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:01 (eighteen years ago)

Bob, I think the easiest way I can put it is that the future always feels open for me, there's always promise and something to enjoy and be surprised by. I don't feel like I've set myself in a course and grown to accept a path yet. It's a spirit that's always been a part of me and has simply continued and developed with time, and perhaps because I identify that with my youth it feels like an overriding spirit from that time. Maybe this is an explanation that only makes sense to myself, but it's the best I can offer right now.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:07 (eighteen years ago)

it's curious,but people here didnt talk (maybe yet) about 2 main issues of getting old in the modern world:finding yourself unemployed in a world that only wants the young,cheap workers,and loneliness (being an old single..)

― Zeno, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:15 (eighteen years ago)

do you work for a market research company?

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:18 (eighteen years ago)

Well, you said you hoped it wouldn't be too "depressive" - so I didn't go down the route of pointng out that being old doesn't actually have much going for it, and involves rampant discrimination etc.

People who say they're looking forward to it should be parachuted into the nursing home I visit every other week, for a reality check.

― Bob Six, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:22 (eighteen years ago)

just a curious amateur sociologic who tries to understand and learn

― Zeno, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:23 (eighteen years ago)

2 main issues of getting old in the modern world:finding yourself unemployed in a world that only wants the young,cheap workers,and loneliness (being an old single..)

Well, I'd guess most ILXors are too young to be having crises over those things yet. Before "getting old" means thinking about unemployment or retirement, it just means being behind in your career, with time and hope left to correct that. And you can start thinking about "being an old single" as early as your late twenties, but it's more in an abstract self-consoling way than actually staring down the possibility or coming to terms with it.

― nabisco, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:28 (eighteen years ago)

I think the issues you bring up Zeno are issues that are pervasive thoroughout life. Yes odds are unemployability and loneliness might be more likely when you're a senior but life is shit isn't it? I assume if these come up in my later years I'll deal with them as I have every other shitty/traumatic/unavoidable thing that has happened in the past 30-odd-yrs.

Life's not guarnteed to be pretty no matter how old you are. So why be afraid of it?

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:31 (eighteen years ago)

Because it's not guaranteed to be pretty, duh.

― nabisco, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:34 (eighteen years ago)

The 'old single' aspect crops up from time to time in my head, certainly. I'm also not blind to the problem of reaching a state where one might not be able to take care of oneself. But I tend to think of obsessing over such problems as being chimeric; alternately I also tend to think of societal models and assumptions regarding 'the natural family unit' et al as being the solution to be biased, to say the least.

Life not being guaranteed to be pretty, it seems to me that there are large amounts of partial hedging of bets out there that can help depending on the person.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:35 (eighteen years ago)

TS: the glass is nearly empty vs. the glass has one or two tasty sips left

xpost

― Rock Hardy, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:36 (eighteen years ago)

Because it's not guaranteed to be pretty, duh.

So you'll live your life in fear of bad turns it might take? That's a pretty awful way to live.

And Ned, yes to some degree. But many of life's worse happenings are completely out of your control.

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:47 (eighteen years ago)

Thus my use of the word 'partial.'

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:48 (eighteen years ago)

Shit, you're not doing your name any service here! ;-)

what do you mean??

That you're pretty strong - you don't let these things affect you - something which I fail to achieve. (For years I was completely freaked out that I could get breastcancer like my mom. I'm a hypochondriac whose favourite record, dEUS' Worst Case Scenario, is her motto in life.)

― stevienixed, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:49 (eighteen years ago)

i think about it a lot. i see a lot of sad old people at the hospital and i ain't going out like that.

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:50 (eighteen years ago)

I started using MsMisery after the last time I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a(nother) suicide attempt. It's self-depricating and also kind of a fuck you to all the misery life's given me. I'll just embrace it instead of letting it break me down. And honestly I think that attitude has done wonders for my general mindstate in the three years since.

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:52 (eighteen years ago)

you gotta keep moving. like a shark! you stop and you are done for.

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:58 (eighteen years ago)

people live to damn long these days. it's unnatural. i know a woman who's 99 who retired in 1970. she's been retired for almost 40 years! that's a whole 'nother life. not that she didn't do anything in that time, but still...

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:00 (eighteen years ago)

my grandma's like that (just saw her yesterday) she's 96, has been retired all my life. But its only in the last year or so that she's shown any real depression about aging, since she's started to kinda lose energy.

Having worked in old folks homes and being around my grandma I will say this: if you don't have kids to take care of you, no one gives a shit about you when you're old, no one is looking out for you.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:11 (eighteen years ago)

the only thing that currently worries me about getting older (and I mean REALLY old, the point where you aren't able to really take care of yourself) is the prospect of facing it without my wife, if she happens to go before me.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:13 (eighteen years ago)

live every week like it's shark week!

― rrrobyn, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:23 (eighteen years ago)

hahahaha! that's the next t-shirt!

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:31 (eighteen years ago)

i have that printed out on a clear label and stuck to my monitor

― kenan, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:57 (eighteen years ago)

I really dont want to be so old i'm an undignified incapacitated mess. I wont have kids to look out for me, who knows if I'll have a partner to do so... Ive thought about just ending it if i'm 90 and starting to go senile or something. Then again I am sore afraid of dying.

Mortality is really starting to loom at me though, and I just get *fierce* nostalgia. I'm Proustin' it up all over my head.

― Trayce, Thursday, 5 April 2007 23:18 (eighteen years ago)

three years pass...

are you afraid of getting old?

yeah, a little. more than i used to be.

― Daniel, Esq., Sunday, 22 August 2010 05:26 (fourteen years ago)

not so much afraid more sickened and appalled

― 'ray Clamence (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 22 August 2010 09:28 (fourteen years ago)

No. I'm afraid of not getting old.

― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Sunday, 22 August 2010 11:37 (fourteen years ago)

then be VERY afraid ;)

― acoleuthic, Sunday, 22 August 2010 11:45 (fourteen years ago)

*Waves cane at LJ* Young whippersnapper. Hey you kids, get off of my lawn!

― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Sunday, 22 August 2010 17:05 (fourteen years ago)

I couldn't wait to stop being young.

― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 22 August 2010 17:23 (fourteen years ago)

I'm so glad to grow older, to move away from those awful times

― i maybe does drugs (rip van wanko), Sunday, 22 August 2010 17:28 (fourteen years ago)

I get that. In a lot of ways, I was happy to not be young anymore. But that's different from the thread question, I think. Put differently, ''stop being young'' isn't what's meant by ''getting old''

― Daniel, Esq., Sunday, 22 August 2010 17:29 (fourteen years ago)

I feel better about it if I can believe I'd know when to stop, when there's diminishing returns from going on.

Being an active pensioner is ok. Being in care home not capable of feeding myself isn't. (I did the visiting the care home routine every other week for 5 years - it's depressing enough to visit)

― Bob Six, Sunday, 22 August 2010 17:42 (fourteen years ago)

Fear of aging among the young is just another form of fear of the unknown.

― Aimless, Sunday, 22 August 2010 17:46 (fourteen years ago)

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