Age sneaking up on you

[Killer Angel]

I'm not old. I'm vintage.

Youth is wasted on the young. Youth, sexual endurance and working knees. The lucky welps.

[WarKitty]

Were you teaching freshmen? I'm of the impression that you were assigned the introductory courses, those responsible for weeding out the students unprepared for college.

They were introductory courses, but there was this big pressure from the administration to make sure they passed, because students who flunk out of college don't pay tuition.

Really I think the way we do college is bad. I'd rather have a system that allows students to fail more, but is also more tolerant of failing.

[veti]

Notice that I never said anything about the idea that I should throw myself to the ground/whatever for future generations to use as a stepping stone for progress, I absolutely agree that I'm no-ones stepping stone. I merely said that previous generations can kiss my butt with what they may or may not think about us considering how awful they were towards their fellow human being.

And future generations will look back at that quote and say "Look how incredibly egotistical people were in this time! I'm so glad we've grown out of that and we're now perfect."

And while yeah if you go by sheer number of lives the worst crimes against humanity were in the 20th century(Hitler alone can lay claim to that, don't even have to address the other despots), but over-all our ancestors were by far the worst offenders for crappy attitudes towards what is and isn't acceptable treatment of fellow human beings. Most of the crap the 20th century humans did was perpetrated by a handful of individuals, where-as most of the goods that's been done has been accomplished by a very large body of people, showing that over-all more progress has been made in the area of human rights.

Crow has already partly addressed this, but I note you're talking about Hitler, who's just about comfortably far back in history. (How often do you speak to anyone who remembers his time?) But if politicians today are any better, it's only a matter of degree. And we vote for them.

I will just throw one name in here: Bartolome de las Casas, the Spanish conquistador bishop who in 1550 was campaigning - very much against the contemporary grain - for native Americans to have human rights - something that the USA didn't get around to recognising until 1924. But then, he was silent on the subject of women's and LGBT rights, so that makes him a monster, right?

Already planning on the "Vogon" thing cuz I couldn't remember which flavor of forehead-lump alien stabbed him, I decided to run with more flippant misnaming at the last minute and wrote "Picachu," then kept it in because it made me laugh out loud for like six seconds, and also I figured people would know I meant dear Jean-Luc.

That Pikachu has a first name, and it's "Jean-Luc", is my new headcanon. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

[Gnome Alone]

That Pikachu has a first name, and it's "Jean-Luc", is my new headcanon. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

You're welcome! A quick Google image search for "Jean-Luc Pikachu" may ease the pain somewhat.

[TheThan]

Yes. Also, "old age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill", which is nice. Always good to recall, especially when dealing with those we do not think are treacherous or old~

That’s my dad’s motto.

[tomandtish]

I once read a sign or was it a shirt? I don’t remember, anyway it said this:

“To be old and wise, you first must be young and stupid”


There’s a lot of truth to that.

Wisdom is part of growing older, you may look back and say “I wish I wasn’t that stupid back then” but now you know you aren’t and you’re not going to be making those same mistakes in the future. At least hopefully (some people never learn).

I think it’s up to us to teach the younger generation(s) to be better than they are, not to make the same idiotic mistakes we did and to improve the world by being wiser, smarter and generally better people.

The shorter version (and I don't remember where I first heard it): "Experience is what you gain just after you need it".

The funny thing is, I very seldom feel old. I always feel about the right age (45 now). Everyone else is either too young or too old. And yes, I realize that it is a little hypocritical that I've felt this way for the last 20 years or so, but there you have it.

[comicshorse]

[QUOTE=SiuiS;18541007Sometimes I can't sleep because I know that right now in the dark, this is all the time for me I have. Once my head hits the pillow, I'll wake up and it's Tomorrow, and I have to work again and go out and spend another 20 hours before I have any time for me. [/QUOTE]

And

I have been surprised that lately, I can't get 3 hours of sleep a night without feeling like I've been ritually slaughtered and brought back to a hateful mockery of life the next day.

Seriously ?! Even when I was young I couldn't manage without 7 hours a night and now I'm old I prefer 8 ( or more if I can get it). You regularly manage on that little ?

Er sorry for the thread de-rail. Yes I'm old, white beard, thinning hair (which is the bit I really hate), moving house destroyed my knees for a week, etc

[Gnome Alone]

And



Seriously ?! Even when I was young I couldn't manage without 7 hours a night and now I'm old I prefer 8 ( or more if I can get it). You regularly manage on that little ?

Er sorry for the thread de-rail. Yes I'm old, white beard, thinning hair (which is the bit I really hate), moving house destroyed my knees for a week, etc

I have always greatly preferred to sleep for longer than that (I seem to do best with about seven hours) but I used to be able to function on 3 or 4 if I had to. Now lately, and I mean this is a pretty new development, say in the last year and a half or so (I'm 33, dunno if that's relevant), I suddenly can't sleep that little without feeling completely drained and miserable. So, I guess my point is I can no longer manage on it.

[Driderman]

We're getting to that age where our memories will soon be the things of legend.

Except that we have technology for remembering now, and doing it better than forgetful aging people, so that's not really of any particular value to the next generations.

[Aedilred]

Except that we have technology for remembering now, and doing it better than forgetful aging people, so that's not really of any particular value to the next generations.

Until that technology fails, for whatever reason, and you're completely, utterly, screwed.

[golentan]

Until that technology fails, for whatever reason, and you're completely, utterly, screwed.

There are foundations working on documenting various fields of knowledge in formats that should withstand the centuries and be easily readable in the even of disaster. Here's one pertaining to language, which should help archaeologists decode other documentation in years in the distant future, even if english or chinese or arabic are distant, untranslatable memories.

[Aedilred]

There are foundations working on documenting various fields of knowledge in formats that should withstand the centuries and be easily readable in the even of disaster. Here's one pertaining to language, which should help archaeologists decode other documentation in years in the distant future, even if english or chinese or arabic are distant, untranslatable memories.

It's not just document readability into the future, although that is certainly a concern. My impression was that Driderman was referring to personal memory rather than cultural memory, and even on a day-to-day level the decline of human memory leads to problems. When I was a boy, I had to learn addresses and phone numbers of key contacts, in case of emergency. Now, the only addresses and phone numbers I know are those same ones. I haven't committed a phone number to memory in ten years; nor an address other than my new home one. It's all stored in my phone. So what happens if that phone gets stolen, or runs out of battery, and I need to call someone? I'm screwed. Likewise, many of my peers - at least, people slightly younger than me - have no idea how to get about without reading directions off their phone. Usually they won't even look up a route before setting out, they'll just trust their phone to get them there. Which is great until they lose the signal, or, again, the phone breaks, is lost, stolen, etc.

It's not just smartphones, either, although they're the most obvious umbilical cord. Increasingly, we rely - and are expected to rely - on computers requiring both power and connection to the internet, both of which are far from guaranteed to remain consistently available even into the relatively near future. It's an alarming single point of failure both on a personal and a societal scale.

Which - quite aside from any concerns I might have for the sake of present society and human interaction when people declare things like memory "obsolete" (see also: privacy) - makes me very wary about such sweeping statements, because if history has taught us anything, it's that nothing lasts forever, and no technology is 100% reliable, and unless we retain at least some basic skills, we can't afford to make ourselves entirely reliant upon it.

(Not to mention, even if the technology were 100% reliable, it still takes valuable seconds, sometimes minutes, to check the information. Multiply that by a few million points of recall and you've wasted your life looking things up. Memory isn't always instant, but it's usually quicker. The human brain is an incredible resource, and we're wasting it by increasingly slaving it to our own creations.)

[veti]

It's not just document readability into the future, although that is certainly a concern. My impression was that Driderman was referring to personal memory rather than cultural memory, and even on a day-to-day level the decline of human memory leads to problems. When I was a boy, I had to learn addresses and phone numbers of key contacts, in case of emergency. Now, the only addresses and phone numbers I know are those same ones.

Rifling through my memory, I can find several current phone numbers (and a lot of older ones, which I sometimes use for bits of passwords). My own mobile number, for instance - I have to keep giving that every time I take my car to the garage, or dry cleaning, or whatever. My home number I have to keep giving to my bank (for some reason) and a few other more old-fashioned businesses. My spouse's and sister-in-law's mobile numbers - I deliberately memorised those ones, just in case. My employer's number, I often have to give over the phone or manually type into various places. Then there are three or four friends who've had the same numbers since the 90s.

[SiuiS]

That's one way of looking at it. And yet something about the way you say that makes me want to burn the world to ashes for having the temerity to treat my life and accomplishments - meagre as they are - as a mere stepping-stone for a future I might well despise. It's also a very Whiggish way of looking at things. I think some of the "giants" of yesteryear would be horrified at what we've done with the place, with ourselves, and all the moreso because we do so under the uncritical assumption that it's what they were ultimately working towards.

It's all in the presentation. I don't think of this as the continual and inevitable victory of progress over reaction, though. Like any evolutionary process, something selected for may become a hindrance and be selected out. It's just now we have the ability to look at our social genetics from so long ago and take inference from what happened then.

I don't have grey hairs...I have elven highlights....

Heh.

That being said, I work a physical job, I find many of the 'kids' leaping off of, and onto our work truck. I climb, they jump. I always find myself saying, 'your 45 yo knees may regret that in the future'. It's the manner of life.

I've got a lot of truck friends who say that. XD

.....If you believe that, I don't really know what to say. If you think we aren't better for allowing people of different skin color to have the same rights as everyone else and to not be slaves, if you think we aren't better then our ancestors because we don't persecute people because of their sex or their sexual orientation, then..just wow.

Those persecutions do still exist. We just punish people when they get caught persecuting.

Anyway I think people are taking longer to mature. It used to be that when you turned 18 you were an adult and you were expected to think and act like an adult. Now when you’re 18, people expect you to still be a kid. Heck I’ve met people fresh out of college in their mid 20s that still acted like children and had no real sense of work ethic or how to conduct themselves professionally. Maybe its an expectation thing, maybe I’m just getting old.

I agree. It's visible in how college is the new highschool; kids go into college because that's what you do, not because hey are adults making rational decisions about their lives. People aren't really adult anymore until they're 25 or so, because we stop holding them responsible. In some ways that's good. In other ways that's bad.

It's very frustrating though.

No, sadly you are absolutely right, society seems to tell the younger folks "Get all the partying and stuff done, then settle down and be an adult, it's ok if takes you until your 30". A very close friend of mine is half a year older then I am(so closing in on 34 he is) and he still parties like he's 20, does drugs like he's 20, acts like he's 20, talks like he's 20, and like you said, work as if he was still 20, as in, he can't hold down a job for the life of him because he gets angry over absolutely minor things(Like "OH my god, you want me to work Overtime Saturday? SCREW YOU I QUIT". It's...embarrassing honestly. I've even sat down with him and said "Dude, you need to get a grip bro, stop leaving jobs over stupid stuff. It's time to grow up, you have two kids relying on you, and you are in your mid-30's!"

Basically he acts the same way now as we both did when we were both 18-21. I will freely admit, I left several jobs when I was 18-19 over stupid crap, such as I refused to do the pre-workday stretches that a company I worked for required, or when some chick was the tiniest bit rude to me my first night(admittedly, she was making overly sexual disparages to me and I didn't even know her, but as an adult I realize the correct thing to do in that situation is to report her to the manager and ask to be moved, not to storm past the supervisor saying "F This place I quit").

I have(through the aforementioned close friend) several younger friends(people he parties with) that are between 20-25, and out of about a dozen of them, only ONE has a steady job, 7 are entirely unemployed and have been for as long as I've known them, bouncing from house to house and sleeping on couches, and the other 4 only work maybe 2 months out of the year before they get bored. I honestly don't know where the hell they get the money to party as much as they do, I mean hell, beer, weed & cigarettes all cost money and they always have a plentiful abundance of those, and at least half of them aren't even on speaking terms with their parents >< My guess is rather illicit doings, reselling some of the stuff they use themselves, it's the only thing I can think of.

Edit: Before people start making assumptions, I feel I should add that most of them are more acquaintances then friends, people who I know on a first name basis, but don't particularly hang out with. I stopped doing drugs when I was 19.

Yeah. Those people exist. They sort of create a strata wherein they can exist indefinitely, avoiding or rationalizing away any impetus to grow.

A wild Relevant Quote appears!

"The onset of puberty signals the end of the child's apprenticeship to its parents. It signals the end of childhood itself. Again, this isn't cultural, it's genetic. In tribal societies, the pubertal youth is understood to be ready for initiation into adulthood — and must be initiated into adulthood. You can no longer expect this person to want to imitate adults. That craving has vanished and that phase of life is over. In tribal societies, they make a ceremonial acknowledgment of this, so everyone is clear about it. 'Yesterday these people were children. Today they're adults. That's it.'

"The fact that this transformation is genetic is demonstrated by your own failure to abolish it through cultural means — legislation and education. In effect, you've passed a law extending childhood for an indefinite period and have redefined adulthood as a moral privilege that ultimately can only be self-awarded, on grounds that are far from clear. In tribal cultures, people are made adults just the way your presidents are made presidents, and they no more doubt that they're adults than George Bush doubts that he's the president. Most adults in your culture, however, are never absolutely sure when they've managed to cross the line — or even if they've ever managed to cross it." -Daniel Quinn

Interesting.

[SiuiS]

That’s my dad’s motto.

Hehe.

The shorter version (and I don't remember where I first heard it): "Experience is what you gain just after you need it".

Ain't that the truth...

The funny thing is, I very seldom feel old. I always feel about the right age (45 now). Everyone else is either too young or too old. And yes, I realize that it is a little hypocritical that I've felt this way for the last 20 years or so, but there you have it.

Mm. When I was healthy I felt the same. I let myself go physically though and somehow expected myself to be separate from myself? I don't know. Now I'm paying for my begin-life crisis. XD

And



Seriously ?! Even when I was young I couldn't manage without 7 hours a night and now I'm old I prefer 8 ( or more if I can get it). You regularly manage on that little ?

I'm talking about anxiety there, not sleep amount. It sucks. I love sleep. I love being able to wake up and lounge about for another hour, letting the tidal pull of the sea wash bed you with newer and stranger dreams so close to waking.

But every day I wake up I am one more day into a habit of being a 'one more day, then I'll live my life' person. It's irrational. If my routine actively causes me anxiety I should change the routine, not avoid time passing somehow. But there it is. I fear the progress of my life when I make no progress. Deeply. Spiritually. And the ritual of sleep has become my gateway, my one more step to self-dissapointed mediocrity.

I've never really examined that in that much detail before. Hmm.

There are foundations working on documenting various fields of knowledge in formats that should withstand the centuries and be easily readable in the even of disaster. Here's one pertaining to language, which should help archaeologists decode other documentation in years in the distant future, even if english or chinese or arabic are distant, untranslatable memories.

Ha! I knew it! That sort of stuff is ripe for zombie apocalypse games!

[golentan]

My favorite Long Now project is the Clock. It's designed to operate for 10,000 years, keeping perfect time, and chiming a unique tone every time it chimes for 10,000 years, with the option to improve it or keep it running far longer. But yeah. Long Now projects are great to throw into post apocalyptic games.

[Scarlet Knight]

Except that we have technology for remembering now, and doing it better than forgetful aging people, so that's not really of any particular value to the next generations.

There is a joy to listening to eye witness accounts.

I've read about Ruth's called shot in the 1932 World Series, I've seen the footage of Gehrig's luckiest man speech, but to hear about it from someone who was there? That's priceless!

Be prepared, your grandkids are going to interview you about 9/11, Obama, and life before computers.

[Gnome Alone]

Pfft, as if that's what they'll care about. "Wasn't that the era when they cracked the human genome, and boy bands roamed the Earth?"

[Crow]

Pfft, as if that's what they'll care about. "Wasn't that the era when they cracked the human genome, and boy bands roamed the Earth?"

What was Justin Bieber like?

[SiuiS]

Talk about age sneak attacks. I went to the gym today, and figured I could do push-ups for days so I could bench a little under half my bodyweight. Right?

After scraping my head out from under 70# I managed to find the perfect weight for my warm up back into fitness. The bar.

[Crow]

Talk about age sneak attacks. I went to the gym today, and figured I could do push-ups for days so I could bench a little under half my bodyweight. Right?

After scraping my head out from under 70# I managed to find the perfect weight for my warm up back into fitness. The bar.

Lol, there's no substitute for raw strength.

[golentan]

Lol, there's no substitute for raw strength.

Intelligence enough to design a hydraulic powered motion assist exoskeleton, and/or the use of a pulley system.

[Crow]

Intelligence enough to design a hydraulic powered motion assist exoskeleton, and/or the use of a pulley system.

Someone's gotta build it. ;)

Though let's be fair. I was talking about endurance-focused individuals having to work much harder to transition into strength-focused activites. Whereas strength-focused individuals can transition into endurance-focused activities much smoother.

So long as we aren't talking non-functional bodybuilder types.

[Aotrs Commander]

I t was said of me at age eleven by my teachers - on more than one occasion - that I was already middle-aged, and I decided at around twenty-four I was Old, so over a decade later I must be pretty decrepid.

It has never bothered me, since I have always taken the Edmund Blackadder approach "...I want to be old, and then annoy people by pretending I'm deaf."

[Scarlet Knight]

I got the Victoria's Secret catalog this month. I used to look forward to getting it, now I wonder if the models are even legal to photograph they look so young ( I swear they look 14!)

[SiuiS]

Someone's gotta build it. ;)

Though let's be fair. I was talking about endurance-focused individuals having to work much harder to transition into strength-focused activites. Whereas strength-focused individuals can transition into endurance-focused activities much smoother.

So long as we aren't talking non-functional bodybuilder types.

I used to be good at that though; I had a fair shot at both marine corps NCO and cirque de soleil performer. It was a glorious year of potential ruined by bad fiscal choices that spiraled me to where I am now. XD

I t was said of me at age eleven by my teachers - on more than one occasion - that I was already middle-aged, and I decided at around twenty-four I was Old, so over a decade later I must be pretty decrepid.

It has never bothered me, since I have always taken the Edmund Blackadder approach "...I want to be old, and then annoy people by pretending I'm deaf."

You're undead, you don't count. :P

I got the Victoria's Secret catalog this month. I used to look forward to getting it, now I wonder if the models are even legal to photograph they look so young ( I swear they look 14!)

Yeah. That's a problem with beauty standards though; young women encouraged to prim the leaves to look older and older women trying to cling to that same youthful look.

[Aotrs Commander]

You're undead, you don't count. :P

That does make the "pretend I'm deaf" thing slightly more difficult to pull off, I'll grant you...

[SiuiS]

"What? You'll have to speak up old chap! I haven't any ears to speak of, you see!"

[Winter_Wolf]

Talk about age sneak attacks. I went to the gym today, and figured I could do push-ups for days so I could bench a little under half my bodyweight. Right?

After scraping my head out from under 70# I managed to find the perfect weight for my warm up back into fitness. The bar.

I don't know what kind of bar you use at your gym, but the ones at the gyms I've been to are all 45 lbs by themselves, 50 if you put clamps on them. Then again I prefer to use dumbbells at lower weights because I've been lead to believe not having the bar means each arm has to use *all* those stabilizing muscles, of which I have several that need strengthening to correct musculoskeletal imbalances. Ain't ashamed to say that 20 is plenty good enough for me. Back in high school I maxed out at 275 (using the bar, not dumbbells), but I was both in the weightlifting class and wrestling, AND young enough to value it as an accomplishment. I ain't no spring chicken anymore, though.

Speaking of VS catalogs, I actually flip through it to look at the clothes. The clothes. And ridicule the terrible photoshop hack jobs. I feel embarrassed for the people that did that, and a little indignant at the knowledge that they're getting paid to be lazy and sloppy. I am a crusty, crusty curmudgeon.

[Gnome Alone]

I can do one one-ish pull-up.