Thoughts on Growing Old
nerdyfool.blogspot.com
nerdyfool.blogspot.com
I love getting older. I always tell people that I don't think of birthdays as getting a year older, I think of them as leveling up.
I'm level 41 now, and I hope to earn enough experience points to make it all the way to level 80, or even level 90 one day.
Sure, I can't run quite as fast, but I still try to run. What's best, though, is that I get all the increased abilities that come from leveling up. More wisdom, more knowledge, more credibility, and maybe even a bigger kingdom if I do things well.
When I was 21, everything was hard. Talking to new people was hard, getting a job was hard, even getting taken seriously was hard. I paid those dues already, I have no interest in going backwards. I'd rather keep leveling up.
Jokes aside, I've managed to live all of my life day by day, in the moment. I see many who don't, so I'm grateful. My code only ever gets better. And I do Krav Maga three times a week, so am as fit today as I was during the bush war in Angola in 1989.
Another cool thing about age is that it's inversely proportional to giving a shit.
TLDR - it provided the cold-war-era US and USSR an opportunity to fight a real war by proxy, at a time where they couldn't be seen to be fighting a real war.
Being a bit older helps me recall the amazingness of the modern world.
Several commenters have pointed out that levelling up means cutting off choices - but I managed to mostly follow what I enjoyed when I was younger, and I would much rather be a capable developer than an olympic athlete or a rock star. I MAKE THINGS. THAT CHANGE PEOPLE'S LIVES. EVERY DAY. Most 'successful' people my age can't say that, if they ever could. Middle management doesn't MAKE anything, unless you count meetings and memos - but I do.
Random advice for younger folks: making at least some kind of a living doing what you love and making a difference is way better than making big money doing something pointless that you hate.
Part of me still thinks that I'm 25, but another part of me is now old enough to reflect on the clueless jerk I occasionally was when I was 25. Growing up is a balance between who you were and who you are now, and especially in technology it's important to not forget your 25-year-old self while still keeping the 40-year-old as well. If you can be both 20-something and 40-something at the same time, it makes for a great combination of enthusiasm and perspective.
I'm 27. Why? I personally just miss the feeling of having it all in front of you. Pft, a doctor? I can do that. A pro athlete? It's possible. Senator? I can do that. However unlikely those may have been from the beginning, they were at least possible. They definitely become less likely as you get older.
The only thing about growing old that makes me uneasy is seeing opportunities close. Sure, new ones open up, but seeing old ones close still hurts.
I guess also, certain things are experienced a certain way only the first time. The elation I felt the first time I was in live was absolutely crazy - I loved every bit of it.
Other than that, I agree with OP - it's very nice being less stupid. It does, however, rob life of suspense a bit as experience teaches you to expect a lot of things.
> seeing old ones close still hurts
Decrepitude I address by running regularly and trying to curb my over-eating. It's a cliche but I really am in better shape at 33 than I was in my 20's. This is mostly because I didn't take care of myself at all until I was 30, but most people can improve their eating and exercise habits.
Another problem is your mind and/or memory fading. Well it's been shown that this can be staved off by playing games and staying mentally challenged. As a developer this isn't a problem so far, I still play games every day.
What about social isolation, and losing friends and family until you're alone? I've always been a bit of a curmudgeon, so this is one I need to watch out for. I have to make sure to maintain a healthy group of friends as I get older. So far, so good. It helps that I have a lot of younger siblings, and it's unlikely they'll all die before me.
How about getting out of touch with modern society, arts and music? I don't like Lady Gaga or Nicki Minaj, but there's still new bands and new albums coming out that I do enjoy, and I stay aware of even the things I don't like and can understand why other people do. I may shake my fist and say "You kids today have no taste!" but at least I know why it is that I feel that way, and there's never been a time where I liked all new music anyway. Same goes for movies and TV.
It also goes for technology; I don't cling tightly to the tools I use today or used yesterday. I keep abreast of new technology and am ready to move to new platforms, languages, etc. when something better comes along. I'm not going to be caught with an obsolete skill-set because even for things I don't use every day at work (Ruby, Node.js), I stay at least familiar with them. And this is easier and easier to do the more disparate technologies you have under your belt.
So yeah, aging is a thing that can suck. But you can do what you can to minimize the bad parts.
And there's still more good than bad if you're doing what you want in an environment that rewards you.
However, that means adults who are hundred years old have a vast advantage over you, assuming he is able to keep and integrate the experiences of the last several hundred years.
So if you're a programmer, learning new programming skills might help your career but it probably won't help your brain. Learn a new language or a musical instrument or something else completely different.
I know that this is neither here nor there, but check out Marina and the Diamonds' album "The Family Jewels". I had pretty much given up on any new intelligent pop music being made in this millennium until I heard this album.
Oh yeah, and Spotify is an incredible thing for being able to easily check out what's going in the world of music.
The most interesting part? As you're less and less invested in actually being brilliant in what you do, you gain a deeper understanding of the underlying principles. (I used to be a professional dancer. Many things that were hard to grok when I did them on a day-to-day basis are now entirely obvious. And I can easily demonstrate them, or spot the mistakes. I just can't do them hundreds of times, day-in, day-out :)
Of course, these tend to be the nerdy sports like fencing that involve a lot of mental coordination.
so I'm 26, and on accident I've met one or two people "like me" plus 10 years. By active community participation, and deliberately doing things to stand out, i am gradually meeting a few more. They love to do lunch with people "like them", but they're inevitably busy, and they have other relationships as well, and I don't have a lot of value to them other than as an employee - so I don't get to interact on a regular basis unless I literally go and change employers. which is sort of like dumping the current mentor. It sucks.
I've never met someone "like me" but 20 years older, or 30, or 40. That would be incredible. The current strategy is to continue developing myself and meet people as life takes its course, like a leaf on the wind. I wish there was a way to accelerate this - who knows, by the time I've found a mentor who is 66, retired, who gives a shit about me in the midst of all the other people who want to interact with him - I'll be 56, not 26.
ideas?
If I don't know you from the next guy, why would I be interested in mentoring specifically you? I might as well spend that time to share my experience in ways that reach a broader audience.
However, as I get to know you, I will start to care about you. (Or cut you out of my life ;). As I take an interest in you as a person, I'm more willing to spend my time mentoring you, because I help somebody I know and like.
If there's no personal connection, there's not much of an incentive to invest time.
So, always build a connection first, then do the ask.
as an example: i want to build relationships with the 25-40 crowd, so i get real active in the community, give killer lightning talks, etc: giving lightning talks is a "hack" to gain access to people that i want to build relationships with, to make them interested in building a relationship with me. i'm wondering what channels i might leverage to do similar things to make other classes of people interested in building a relationship with me.
i say "i want" a lot in this post, but as you point out its a "we want", these relationships are clearly mutual.
1) Who are the people you'd _like_ to meet? (There's a lot of us old fogeys out there ;) 2) What would you like from them? 3) What are they interested in? 4) What can you offer?
Take a look at those 4 questions, and you should be able to identify people that you _should_ contact. I realize that's not the question, directly, but unless you prep for success, it's hard to be successful.
So next, how do you meet those people? At this point, you're down to individuals, not a nebulous class. So, volunteer with their charity. Attend classes organized by their employers. If at all possible, do something that gets you into physical proximity. (Uh, please in a non-creepy way. Just saying ;)
But even if you're not in physical proximity - then you ask. Ideally, you get an intro from somebody they know. That opens way more doors than anything else. If you don't know anybody who knows them - cold call. Write a nice e-mail explaining that you know they probably are very busy, but you're really interested in XYZ, and you'd love to pick their brain over coffee, if they have time.
And then wait and see what happens.
In recap: Don't meet "classes of people". Find interesting people and meet the person.
A friend of mine in her 20s went hiking in Japan and most of the hikers were grandparents. They cautioned her against the hike, saying her muscles were too underdeveloped.
Do Asian HN readers have a different attitude here?
We didn't get started as early as we hoped, so we had to push hard to reach the top in time. 100 ft from the top I collapsed with a very painful cramp in my calf. So without a word this old Japanese guy gives me this incredible 30 second massage and I limp to the top.
The sunrise? Complete letdown. Prairie sunrises are much more spectacular, and the star view is comparable. But the climb was awesome.
One of the points the article did make though (well, along the same theme anyway) is that interest in ageing will wax and wane as you go through life. As a 28 year old, soon to be married ageing is on my mind more now than it was 3 years ago. I went through a similar stage when I finished University. Between the two though I may well have skipped past this story.
I'm not even 30 yet, but this is an always true statement. Thanks for sharing it.
Death is natural. It happens, that's all. It's not a bad or good thing. It's just part of everything else. If you know that before hand, you don't have to "deal around it" or feel any pain.
You also ignore the obvious results of death, one of which is reproduction and birth of new life and the resultant new thought patterns that emerge from a divorce from the constraints of past experience.
No one in good health looks forward to death but the lack of it means that we aren't commenting on HN, we're all at best simple eukaryotes swimming in the paradise of primordial ooze until we consume all non-organic resources and then suffer an eternity of starvation.
We are now living in the age of biopolitics, claims University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Jonathan Moreno in his new book The Body Politic: The Battle Over Science in America. “Biopolitics is the nonviolent struggle for control over the actual and imagined achievements of the new biology and the new world it symbolizes,” he writes. “The stakes are about as big as they can get.”
Please, join the Bioprogressives side!
When you're twenty, it feels like you can tackle everything. As you grow older, you realize that you can't even begin to learn enough to know all the things you'd like to tackle :)
We're the first generation that actually has a chance to do something about the annihilation of billions of sentient beings, and the immense suffering caused by the physical and mental effects of aging. But in order to solve the problem, we have to be willing to acknowledge that there is one.
And now that I'm sufficiently inspired, it's time for another SENS donation.
Loss of facility, and younger people increasingly ignore you. That latter is karma for many of us. Plus ça something something I forget.
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Ridiculous.
Agreed on the assessment as ridiculous.
Uh. As you age, you'll notice that an awful lot of "progress" is circular, and the people most often talking about the new, "right way" are the people who stand to benefit.
A cornerstone of our American explosive progress is that old people and old ways get the hell out of the way
Interesting. And here I thought that America's explosive progress was a combination of pioneer spirit, massive resources, and a whole bunch of very lucky historical confluences.
the popular world religions/delusions during the time aging was cured will be the religions that remain with us for a thousand years.
I think your views are very short-sighted. First off, people change quite a lot over their lives. I've seen devout believers become atheists in a few short years.
Additionally, consider the time spans we're talking about. If a person is immortal, he or she will eventually forget virtually everything at least once.