Image by Magnascan on Pixabay. Background added.
There’s a young guy on one of the video channels who goes around asking people how old they are. Then he asks, “What’s it like to be 49 (or 60 or 72)?”
Most of the people say the same thing. They don’t feel their age and it feels pretty damn good.
I say, “Who cares what *you* feel like? You’re an n of 1.”
Some people write articles saying that they’re Biden’s age. And, some of them add,,their own experience of aging says, “It’s time for him to step down.” (I could point out that Trump is just a few years younger but I don’t want to get political.)
The problem is, you can’t compare yourself to Biden or anybody else.
Your experience of getting older may be different from someone else’s. As people age, the differences between them get wider. There’s a famous saying from gerontologists, “If you’ve seen one 80-year-old, you’ve seen one 80-year–old.”
For one thing, you inherited different gees. You live a different lifestyle.
I remember someone commenting about an actress’s treks around Manhattan, New York, with three young children in tow. “That must be really hard,” they said.
But that famous actress doesn’t take subways or push strollers down the crowded sidewalks. She gets driven door-to-door. She has an air-conditioned limo with an experienced chauffeur.
Similarly, an 80-something may have access to private planes and limos. Willie Nelson has a private plane. While it’s easy to admire his ability to go on tour, we have to remember he’s not standing in security lines at the airport.
And I can tell you from first-hand experience, even traveling business class is vastly different from flying coach on flights to Europe. I can only imagine how easy it would be to fly private.
So I’m not enthused about all those “how I feel about aging” articles. Most of them won’t apply to me…or anyone else I know. The answers are best reserved for one’s closest friends and one’s therapist…and not everyone of any age has close friends or therapists. An n of 1 makes for an interesting story and nothing more.
