Poll: what's the worst part of getting old?

I'd say the worst part for me is the growing consciousness of death.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Wednesday, November 2, 2022 4:46 PM

Agree with this ... and the growing consciousness of leaving behind life, the people you love ... the realization that at some point this is all just going to be ... over? I'm starting to be able to fathom the finality of it in a way that I certainly couldn't even 5 years ago, much less 10+. (My kids growing up are a big part of this, I imagine.)

I'm 46.

I never give a 2nd thought to death, it's actually quite inspirational to me and I have no fear of it. It's the prospect of illness and pain that gives me the fear. Toothache, major surgery, hospital appointments, dentists etc ... it's the stuff of trying to stay alive in an aging husk that gives me regular nightmares.

I've done drugs, frequently drubk too much, smoked from the age of 13 (stopped for 15 years to give the lungs a fighting chance), been exposed to enough asbestos to give asbestosis to an elephant. I'm grateful for every day I haven't developed a serious health condition, but still not afraid of death.

otm . tbh I don't have the imagination to be afraid of death.

although I have never done drugs or smoked or been drunk or loved anyone so I have probably wasted my life anyway really. oh well I've mostly had a nice time when I haven't been at school or work so that's something. lol.

ME AT 28: My grandfather just passing is the most significant death I've experienced.

ME AT 48: Well, goddamm. Can't even get a poker night going anymore with everyone dead.

otm . tbh I don't have the imagination to be afraid of death.

I used to be like that but it creeps up on you. Plus people your age, or younger, starting to die.

Awareness of my own mortality set in when I was diagnosed with diabetes. That was more than 15 years ago, though. I'm mostly over it.

it's hard seeing someone deteriorate with dementia.

This.

Yes.

On some level I don’t fear my own death because I won’t be conscious to care. I do have a growing fear of the death of people around me I know and love. I don’t have a lot of friends and family and the process of experiencing them being peeled away and being alone is traumatic.

Why do you assume you are going to shuffle off in your sleep?

My fear of death is more about the idea that once my consciousness is gone I don't have access to any other point of consciousness, so when my one strand of connection to the universe is severed, the universe itself may as well never have existed. The inability to wrap my head around that much nothing is what scares me.

that scares me a lot too but moreso as a teenager than it does now. I think as you get older you witness the death of your previous self in a way, especially when you come across people and places that used to be significant in your life, memories start flooding back and you think "god, was I really like that..?" hell sometimes an old RYM review or ILX post triggers that. I don't think the human mind is a particularly great arbiter of what's real. you get fooled every night in your sleep. then you have people who take massive doses of psychedelics and come back saying things like "it was more real than real". well what the hell's that mean?

the other thing that kept me up when I was 15 was this knowledge that, fifty years from now, I will probably still be alive (maybe??) but most of the people I currently know will not be. but I guess that was sort of invalidating everything that was gonna happen over the next 50 years. tbh I was fine getting older, being in my mid-30s is nice but I'm at the point where I kinda don't wanna get any older than this. but I can't stop time, not yet anyway. the thing that gives me peace with it is my kids. if I could stop time then they wouldn't get older either and they wouldn't get to experience all the cool things that go with it. they're the most important thing on the planet to me and even just watching them go from helpless little wriggly things to these 4-foot monsters who cannot ever shut the fuck up has really been the single most profound experience of my life. and to think a decade ago they didn't even exist.

fwiw, having watched half a dozen family members die of slow deterioration (which is far more common than rapid unexpected death), it was my observation that the dying person's sensed the impossibility of sustaining their life in a body where their major organs were rapidly failing. They came to understand that extending their life any longer would not be of any benefit to them; it was the end of the road. At that point their fear of death was extinguished; they simply stopped fighting it and accepted it as their all-encompassing reality. Fear of death is something experienced by people with some measure of health and the ability to still engage with the world.

Why do you assume you are going to shuffle off in your sleep?

I’m saying once I’m dead I won’t know it and it won’t matter.

I just visited my grandma who is 92. she's in a home and has dementia pretty bad but she's pretty happy there. every time I see her she talks about death with this very striking indifference. just like "yeah I'm ready to go whenever". and your instinct is to go "no grandma, stick around, we love you..." and so on, but nah, she's right. there's nothing left for us to talk to her about. it is the same conversation over and over. there's nothing left for her to do. she's probably never even going to go outside again. the fact that she is so at peace with it is beautiful in a way, I guess.

That was my experience with my mother, who we had to house in an Alzheimers facility because my father couldn't take care of her.
She was mute for many years, but, as in all of her life, she was incredibly sweet right up until the end. She is the person in my life I know I will always have loved the most

I think it varies a lot. My Dad was very anxious in the early stages of his dementia, when he still had some insight and knew something was wrong and there were things he was supposed to remember but couldn't. But then in the latter stages, he was pretty happy. That was far from the case for many or even most of the other dementia patients at his nursing home though, there were quite a few pretty disturbed people there.

there's nothing left for us to talk to her about. it is the same conversation over and over. there's nothing left for her to do.

One of the most personally significant conversations I've ever had was when I was 25 and sent by the smalltown newspaper I was working for to do a feature on a home health service that aimed to let people "age in place" by providing specific kinds of assistance. So I went with the chipper young woman who worked for the service to visit one of her favorite clients, a 93-year-old woman. The older woman had trouble getting around even in her own home, but she was mentally plenty sharp. She said some predictably warm things about how much she appreciated the service and it meant a lot to her to be able to be in her own small house rather than in a facility somewhere. But then she sighed, and said, "I don't even know why I'm still here. My husband died 25 years ago. Everyone I knew is dead. I can't go anywhere. I wake up every day and ask God why he still wants me here."

I'd never heard that idea expressed before, that you can sort of outlive yourself, outlive any real meaning or pleasure in your own life. It had a huge impact on me (as evidenced by me recounting it nearly 30 years later). She's long dead now I'm sure and I never saw her again, but I've carried that with me.

(I left those quotes out of my story, though. That wasn't the feel-good vibe we were going for.)

My great-great aunt said a similar thing in the late '90s as he hit 97 with her mind still sharp. I asked how she was and she said, "Ah, well, you know, I'm tired of being alive. Are you hungry?"

*she hit 97

I've known two people who lived to be older than 100 (one still with us) and both constantly wondered why they were still alive

Techno utopianists I suppose would argue that that's situational and if everyone you knew lived to 150 in relatively good health, you'd be happy to too. Probably true, but obviously that's a big IF.

Belle & Sebastian getting old too.

Lol!

My wife's grandmother turned 101 last spring and I believe the only reason she's still is alive is that she is incredibly stubborn. Her body is falling apart and mobility is difficult, she can't hear even with hearing aids, can't eat tons of foods she enjoys, complains all her friends are dead, etc.

We took her out of her assisted living facility this summer (where she is the oldest resident) to visit everyone at my mother-in-law's house which is a huge production that requires several people to pull off. She got to hang out, had a few drinks, saw her granddaughter, grandson, great grandson, it was a lovely day at the beach, and after she left everyone sort of agreed that it would have been a perfect time for her to call it quits and move on. But she didn't which I kind of respect but also don't really understand.

My maternal grandmother, the one who lived to 111, always seemed sanguine and unquestioning about her longevity. My mother often said "I definitely don't want to live that long" and got her wish, playing chicken with covid and losing. She had so many health problems and was so furious about her physical decline in her 80s, I know she welcomed a quick ending.

looking at the list there isn’t too much that bothers me at the moment, ailments i have picked up
- receding hairline (fine w/e)
- reduced energy (more sitting down maybe but sure that’s ok - generalised fatigue less so)
- intellectual memory bad and worsening but always has been to a degree

i think the main things i find harder to manage are the fraying of my emotional states: sadness, irritation, mental or emotional sclerosis.

every now and then i get a literally paralysing and quite dizzying fear of death, but i’ve always had those episodes and outwith that i’m resigned, even potentially welcoming at some points.

my nan just died aged 102 and the last 10-15 years of her life were not the greatest. my dad died when i was young, and i remember having a discussion with my mum where she said she had no desire to live as long as her mother, and i said i was worried i had less than the time i’d been at school left in my life using my dad who i take after as a benchmark. we agreed to split the difference.

because i’m not in a domestic relationship at the moment, i do worry about being *alone*. it seems increasingly welcome to have someone else: supporting and being supported, conversing, daily humour. i am very very bored of waking up each morning and going “oh god not you again” and being the most important person in my own life.

lol at mcnulty-esque convolution there - my dad died young, i take after him, i use that as a benchmark and worry about dying at the same age, which isn’t far off. x

I think the feeling that death is now not necessarily imminent but really visible, the satisfying sense that you have done a good job and have mostly finished it, is the *best* part of getting old, not the worst.

if you have done a good job and and mostly finished it ofc.

I mean I go back and forth on "good job" as I imagine we all do, but once you cross 50 "mostly finished" is pretty indisputable, and I think the point still stands, the really big opportunities to screw up are behind you, you can relax a little

eephus, i am very pleased you feel that way. i have no conviction whatsoever of that myself - every year i look back at the scorched earth and wonder what has been “achieved” in any sense. this is purely by the way my own pathology; i’m not trying to generalise or suggest wide applicability, and would hope v much for the more general sense of “a life” that you describe for people.

once you cross 50 "mostly finished" is pretty indisputable, and I think the point still stands, the really big opportunities to screw up are behind you, you can relax a little

Is this based on real life experience? There’s potentially still 15 or so years of employment and then a retirement to navigate. Plenty of time for fresh catastrophes and disastrous setbacks in that time.

lol at mcnulty-esque convolution there - my dad died young, i take after him, i use that as a benchmark and worry about dying at the same age, which isn’t far off. x

I'm already past the age my dad and his dad reached - both of whom had the same name as me - I'm sure you'll be fine!

... when I say "reached", I mean reached and didn't get any further.

Have you “done a good job and have mostly finished it” in being assigned Tom D (III) at birth?

III? Add a couple more to that... I think, I actually don't know.

the fraying of my emotional states: sadness, irritation, mental or emotional sclerosis.

this worries me somewhat, the feeling of being emotionally old. physically i'm doing really well but i have days where i'm basically obliterated by emotional bad weather so to speak. i don't know how that gets anything but worse.

has anyone done the type of meditation that focuses entirely on the death and decay of your body and the impermanence of all bodies/things?

I want to but I don't know if it would help me or break me for good

once you cross 50 "mostly finished" is pretty indisputable, and I think the point still stands, the really big opportunities to screw up are behind you, you can relax a little

Jeez, I wish. I'm turning 50 next year and my mortgage runs for another 17 years beyond that. My kids are young and will need me to provide for them throughout most of that time too. I'm acutely conscious that I could be laid off from my job at any moment and struggle to find another. ("But first, are you experienced? Then fuck off, grandad.") So basically, I feel like I have to paddle harder than ever.

The big opportunities to screw up might be behind you, mostly, maybe, but then so are the opportunities to do anything with the lessons you've learned from your previous big screwups

The big opportunities to screw up might be behind you, mostly, maybe, but then so are the opportunities to do anything with the lessons you've learned from your previous big screwups

― dogdick solanke (Noodle Vague), Sunday, November 6, 2022 12:06 PM (nine minutes ago)

yeah, I feel this really hard (as the youngs say). I go back and forth between, "wtf did I even do for the past 30 years?" and "I may have fucked up in a lot of ways, but my life has been more interesting than most people's, and I didn't fuck up as colossally as some people." ... I definitely have that strong sense of the finite-ness of "good years left" ... of time having gone from oppressively long to scarily short? I keep getting ads for some "bionic knee device" and I actually think about them ... like, the arthritis (if I continue to take after my mom) that is going to set in about 15 years from now.

the recursive anxiety of wasting time by ruminating on how much time I have wasted.

word. you really do have a window when you're younger after which things are kinda set. on the other hand i also believe there isn't as big a difference between the results of 'i did everything right' and 'i fucked up big time' as we think there are.

i'm coming up to 50 and feel like there's still everything to play for - i find myself in a new role at work that is way outside my comfort zone and i'm partly conscious of that as an enviable opportunity and partly terrified that i don't have room to make any missteps because employment-wise there's just yawning void all around me... still making music and feel more creatively engaged than i ever have? and (in a modest way in a local scene) that music is being pretty well-received - if i'm not as fit as i've ever been i'm pretty close

i do feel totally defined and constrained by my life choices (or lack of them) - and that's a feeling that has crept up over the last 10 years or so - like, i'm not gonna get a PhD from here, I'm not gonna play Hamlet, etc - i'm stuck with this weird skill set that i've sort of cobbled together over decades of reluctant employment and i've gotta make the best of it

i do feel totally defined and constrained by my life choices (or lack of them) - and that's a feeling that has crept up over the last 10 years or so - like, i'm not gonna get a PhD from here, I'm not gonna play Hamlet, etc - i'm stuck with this weird skill set that i've sort of cobbled together over decades of reluctant employment and i've gotta make the best of it

oh definitely! I'm in the same place ... I don't know how much of it, for me, is "reluctant employment" however. For me, it's more like circumstances and opportunities that I fell into unintentionally? Or, not entirely unintentionally, but where I am now, and what I am doing, and the likely excitement ahead, is the result of a lot of "unintended consequences"

Today is me in a pretty bad way so the positive version would be: I would like to spend the rest of my life somehow getting my shit together and meditating and coming to peace

But the negative version is full of stuff like "last night I dreamt I was still with my ex and when I woke up and remembered the reality I did an involuntary audit of my failings and stuff I can't properly atone for and it wrecked me and the future looks very cold and lonely"