I’ll be 59 soon. I don’t feel nor act it but it’s getting increasingly unsettling and, dare I say, terrifying as I head towards the wrong end of life. Should I embrace the inevitability and enjoy life to the full (answering my own question) or do you just not think about it?
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It certainly bothers me and I’m young. I enjoy life.
When I was in fourth grade, they had us founding Christmas carols at the hospital.
In the old person’s home wing.
These people were close to death, and knew it. They were in pain, in various stages of dementia, and the place reeked of urine.
That made an indelible effect on me, and I always feared getting old. Still do, at age 47. That leads
Me to taking good care of myself, but also having discussions with my wife and oldest child about what is to be done if I show signs of dementia.
I’m not worried about getting old. I figure I’ll die in the gulag for saying something mean about Israel on the internet, or the climate will get me.
Only because getting old means feeling how I feel longer. Not because of the aging process itself.
I saw family and friends who denied themselves experiences and adventure in order to fund ‘golden years’ security. Then found themselves too infirm to enjoy it.
Some didn’t even last long enough to regret it. Accidents, disease, simple twists of fate. Windows of opportunity close quietly. There’s a balance point of living a full life as we go.
Old age hit me late, but hard. I’m glad I bit off and chewed up a big slice along the way. I never think about it, other than reveling in the memories and feeling grateful to have gotten to make them.
I just turned 40 yesterday, and I feel absolutely terrified. Facing some health problems and some emotional issues at the moment heavily contributes to it though, so maybe it’s not just fear of age.
Not really. Feeling like I’m still 20 at 40 so if things go well I should have another 40 years and if things go bad I know plenty of ways to check out early.
I do the opposite. I plan on not getting old. I’m not exercising or wasting my time in the gym with the insecure and smelly.
I’ll just nope out when I get to 60-ish. A whiff of fentanyl or what-have-you-by-then and lights out. Better than slow decline. Also, no need to contribute to other’s pensions!
I’m actually far more worried for kids. I lived a good life all things considered. I don’t think people realize the effect AI is going to have along with the current state of politics.
Of fear and love I fear not that I will die, but that all i have come to love, the birds, and the things that are not birds, will perish with me.
I do, but in a different context.
I’ve had my first child on the later side – at 38 years old.
I just feel sad sometimes that I know when he’s 40, I’ll be basically 80 and won’t be able to support him how my parents supported me at that age. We also want a second child as well, so he’s not an only child.
One of the consequences of having children later on.
I didn’t until I came to the realization I have lived without my father longer than with him. I am also a few years away from living longer than he did.
39 and I struggle with it more lately. I keep busy to not think about it but sometimes it’s an uncontrollable rabbit hole. I’m in hopes that it gets easier and quieter as I get older.
I’m 61 but as a Christian I fear aging less and less as time goes on.
I’m 57. Not afraid of old age necessarily. But it is giving me a sense of urgency. I am doing things that require health while I can. Racing my bicycle on the velodrome, motorcycle track days, road trips, travel.
I have no desire to end up in hospice or palliative care, or even assisted living where I sit in a messy diaper and watch TV in between visits from my kids. No thanks.
I don’t mind some aches and pains and crappy sleep. But the older I get the more sure I become that I’m going to go out on my own terms once things start to seriously unravel.
Not at all. I’m only 38 and from my teenage years I’ve never been afraid of getting old and/or death.
Death is a part of life, after all, and what I always remember is that humans were never supposed to live as long as we do. We always had outliers, but I think until the 1900’s the average life expectancy for men was somewhere about 43/44 and it’s only from the advent of the Polio vaccine (plus other vaccines like Measles, Mumps, Rubella etc) onwards in the 1950’s that life expectancy shot up to 65+ … in fact, even by the 1930’s Tetanus and Diphtheria vaccines were commonplace and increased average life expectancy to 58 from 43/44 just 30 years earlier.
So for me, anything beyond 40 is really a bonus that we have because of modern medicine.
If you look at the other Great Apes, Gorillas live to 30-40 in the wild, Chimpanzees it’s 38-40, Orangutans it’s 30-40 and those are our closest cousins. Chances are, that’s all we should be living to on average, with outliers, but we have the benefit of modern medicine, society, food abundance etc.
no. I consider someone lucky if they have the chance to get old
I’m realizing I probably should have had some kids as me and my partner deal with his mother’s aging.
I was afraid when I turned 40 but at 42 I’m not afraid anymore
It’s pretty fucking strange to be alive at all. A near endless expanse of time before we live, untold eons after we’ve died.
And yet we’re here in this infinitesimally tiny blip, conscious and blundering around. The probability of it is so unlikely, that I can’t help but think we do it all again after we die.
I think the only reasonable thing to do is enjoy it to the maximum, no matter your age.
You’ve been dead for trillions of years and you had no problem with it. You are now alive in this moment of time, in this precious life, and you upset yourself with such trivialities for no reason.
Amor Fati > Memento Mori. Memento is the massively quoted one, but the Amor Fati quote is the real one.
Love your destiny man, you will be alive again, but maybe trillions of years will pass.
Good news: you are alive now.
I dont think I’m scared of death. Its inevitable. I am scared of not being around my son forever though.
I just turned 62 3 days ago I don’t ever think of the end I guess you could say I’ve accepted the inevitable
Enjoy life. One of my friends and I grew up in “rough” neighborhoods. Around his 50th we were feeling the same as you. Then we realized we have many friends that didn’t make it this far. It gave us some perspective.
Enjoy it, it’s a gift.
I fear being old and alone, but not old.
I don’t fear getting old. I fear being too paralyzed to attempt new risks and hold back. I was told to look far into the future and think back to my current younger self and what think about what regrets I would have if I didn’t do it. That helps me snap out it. I don’t want to live with regrets
I’ve actually gotten wiser, more confident, and more physically fit. I don’t expect the peak to continue all around but I will continue to work to better myself and time is my ally.
Not saying that this is you, but in general this scene is the attitude I’ve taken to aging, and I believe in it.
https://youtu.be/3iaXQ1U7EBg?si=N1_xrK1oHGkyALhn
It gives me pause but also makes me determined to make the most of the time left. I feel like there’s so much to do. I’ll be 60 at the end of the month.
My focus is on taking care of my body with exercise, sleep, and eating well because it’s not just length of life but also quality of life. The thought is to embrace it and own it because frankly the other choice is to be miserable and it will end anyway. Enjoy what your have, not how long you might have it.
I fear dying young. I would love to live to be an old man.
My grandpa is 102 and seems to be enjoying life pretty well.
I can’t wait to be old and know that the pain of living is definitely almost over.
I do not fear getting old, I fear becoming unable. Unable to backpack, unable to keep up, unable to cope with change, unable to contribute.
It will happen, but I’ll do everything I can to prolong it from catching up until I’m ready.
i feel like flat coke.
I never really considered the possibility that I would live to be old. Yet I’m already older than I ever thought I’d be.
I’m not sure that I would say fear, but I certainly hope I’m gone before I can’t take care of myself. I have zero interest in that. And I damn sure want no part of a nursing home.
I like to say that my girl makes me want to live forever(well, as long as her anyway)now that I’ve found her. But that’s assuming I’m still functional.
Dude this is one of those “man looking to the stars” type questions. I think all of us have thought about it.
A sincere recommendation – you might consider paging through Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I personally like the Gregory Hayes translation but the Google robot says there is a better one…
Emperor Aurelius takes a sincere but logical look at the end of life. He struggles with the limited nature of time but still finds beauty in the natural order of life.
It’s really a bunch of random thoughts rather than a solid coherent thesis. Sometimes he is literally just talking to himself.
Best quotes about death from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations follow. I stole these from another reddit post, they are not the G.H. translation; the first is one (7.56) is of my favorite lines ever written.
“Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed thee.” (Meditations, 7.56)
“Do not despise death, but be well content with it, since this too is one of those things which nature wills. For such as it is to be young and to grow old, and to increase and to reach maturity, and to have teeth and beard and gray hairs, and to beget and to be pregnant and to bring forth, and all the other natural operations which the seasons of thy life bring, such also is dissolution.” (Meditations, 9.3)
“Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.” (Meditations, 4.48)
“If thou shalt be afraid not because thou must some time cease to live, but if thou shalt fear never to have begun to live according to nature—then thou wilt be a man worthy of the universe which has produced thee.” (Meditations, 12.1)
(Paraphrased as – Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid that you never start to live.)
Good luck!
embrace reality in all its nuances, including the unwelcome aspects, and suck the marrow out of life while you can.
everything is impermanent and you don’t know when you’ll no longer have this opportunity