There's nothing good in getting older. It just sucks

Of course you're better at your job after 25 years. Of course you learn to be better at most things or learn to deal better with stuff. That's more related to experience than to getting old methinks.

I consider myself a lucky guy, always been. I can't complain about the life I lived up to this point.

But being 17, 20 years old... dude, I could party all night long and still go straight to work like nothing happened. Never had painback or anything.

Must say though that ladies say grey hair looks good on me. Thank god I didn't go bald.

Dislike: Regular exercise becomes a necessary activity just to maintain a fairly stable and functioning mind. When I start to feel severely jaded and cynical about everyone and everything, that's usually when I also realize "oh, I haven't gone for a run in three or four weeks". And when you're really out of shape, you'll do shit like pull an arm muscle just trying to reach your hand behind you to scratch an itch on your back.

Like: All the usual getting older perks and reaching the signposts of emotional maturity mentioned earlier (learning to be able to say "no" was a game-changer for me), but what I really like is how I no longer feel at all like I'm some kind of shut-in loser or something when I decline to go out on a Friday/Saturday night or a holiday event.

One thing I've noticed since I hit my thirties is how nostalgia has become far less potent and ineffective at seducing me into unhealthy spells of pining for the past (specifically my own). The kind of romanticizing of the past that I still stick to relates to consuming older music and pretending that I'm an obsessed teenage fan of that era in order to really get into it. At the moment, I'm a roughly 18 year old sorta into punk in 1978 England who used some of their leftover graduation money to buy David Bowie - '"Heroes"' and Japan - 'Obscure Alternatives' and through repeated listens is becoming convinced that this is their calling in life.

Vibracobra wrote: Wed Sep 07, 2022 11:56 am There's nothing good in getting older. It just sucks

I guess maybe embarrassing your children by being old and out of touch brings some modicum of pleasure, but It's certainly not worth being legitimately old and out of touch.

Smash: Fewer fucks to give about anything even remotely (never had many to give anyway); feeling pretty much totally confidant in any situation when it comes to music stuff (in other words, I know what I'm bringing and I know my limitations); GRAVITAS, BABY; being an 'elder statesperson' around the office suits me fine.

Trash: All physical shit like back aches, arthritis in my right foot, can't run as fast as I used to, can't eat what I want always, all that boring shit.

Off the top of my head...


In the minus column:

A number of my friends are so consumed with their jobs/families/creative pursuits/personal lives that it's anyone's guess how amenable they'll be at one point or another. I don't always know what's going on in their lives. They can pop in at random, sometimes after ridiculously long breaks in communication. I wouldn't say we're estranged, in many cases, but actually getting on the same page can be trying . . . like, way more involved than you'd think it would be. This includes people with whom I've had quite a lot of "face time."

It can be hard to get enough rest. Aches abound but not always ample sleep.

I've put on weight and look worn down some. People who don't like me might say I look like a toad.

I have yet to net much profit from the pursuits at which I'm probably most skilled. Artistically, several successes, I think, but economically, they've all been failures.


In the plus column:

On a healthy day, there's a better sense of not giving too much of a fuck what others think, good or bad. When a person gets old enough, he can only be so arsed. And even when he can be arsed, it can only be taken so seriously. That might sound defensive but it's the truth. If you're a fellow old-ish person, you probably know what I'm talking about.

Am pretty sure I have better taste in music now than when I was younger, even if a lot of this music doesn't have direct bearing on what I might attempt as a musician.

I know now, roughly, how much work it takes to get a given thing done (film/book/record). Have got a firmer understanding of what I might be getting into if I were to say yes to something. And being more experienced, I can anticipate the workflow.

Have filled my life with enough things that I feel less guilty "doing nothing" now. Not ready to sit around watching daytime TV all day, but if I stopped making things, it wouldn't be the end of the world. It's only life, as they say.

Oh, another dislike: when you're younger, you sort of take for granted or naively assume that your folks will always be there (assuming you still like them), and you probably feel like they're fixed/static humans who haven't changed much at all in appearance or demeanor throughout the first 25 years or so of your life. Then as you're becoming older yourself, it really starts to sink-in that time on Earth is limited and precious as they officially become grandparents and their faces start to really visibly age and more closely resemble how you remember your own long-deceased grandparents looked when you were growing up.

Like: Fewer boners
Dislike: Fewer boners

Well, it looks like I'm keeping my hair. Nice. I get paid more money for seemingly doing less work too, although I'm starting to feel like an old man in a young man's field (video game design). I can't make pop culture references any more because nobody under the age of 45 would get it unless it was on Stranger Things, and I'm not into what the kids are into.

Arthritis in my pelvis and hands (and at one point, in my eye). Sometimes I can't walk. First finger on my fretting hand always hurts and starting to lose some mobility. I can see I'm going to end up like Keith Richards with finger joints like walnuts; they're already getting lumpy.

I still have pin sharp close vision, but only if I take my glasses OFF. Been wearing glasses for 40 years and now I have to take them off to check my phone. Everything a foot past my face is a blur, but I'm grateful to have access to that sharp close vision.

Most of the people I ever thought were significant are either dead or getting brutally old. It's hard not to feel like there's no reason to bother. You haven't seen it all but you may feel you've seen enough. Start to want for completely different things to get into, retirement doesn't seem so bad. It's easier to see how little time there is left. Nonexistence is a difficult thing to come to terms with, although being dead pretty much takes care of itself I guess. From there to the end of the universe is no time at all.

If this is an infinite spacetime, and it might be, everything happens again and again.

Many things that have been mentioned ring true for me (pain, arthritis, memory, tired). Thankfully, haven't had issues with hair loss or ED (...knock on wood!!). Other things not mentioned yet directly:

Likes:

- Having enough money as to not have to worry about it on a daily basis
- Having children that are (pretty much) old enough to be left to their own devices

Things (can be likes or dislikes):

- More emotional; sometimes at inconvenient times; sometimes in a helpful way
- Brain works slower; again, could be good or bad

Dislikes:

- Can become cranky as fuck for no apparent reason
- Hair growing from unusual places

The fact that The Descendents did not get to just comfortably ride off into the sunset, and are back out there after things going the way they did?

Not cool...