Comparing Young and Old: Advantages and Disadvantages

[quddusaliquddus]

What are the principle differences between the young and old (other than the physical side of things)?

Advantages and disadvantages? ... energy of young, humbleness of old, etc..?

How and Why do the old look back their youth?

How and Why do the young look forward to their future state of agedness?

 

[derek]

The way we view our past and future may have more to do with unrestricted mnemonic cascades and individual word associations than with any real time experience or expectation.

 

[quddusaliquddus]

what are mnemonic cascades?

 

[derek]

Thoughts or objects that induce related or unrelated memory recall without the limiting effect of language encapsulation

 

[BoulderHead]

What are the principle differences between the young and old (other than the physical side of things)?

The difference between a man and a child is a difference wrought by experience, pain, and suffering, by hard knocks. It cannot be produced by schooling.

What every schoolboy doesn’t know is that he doesn’t know very much. This is precisely what every intelligent adult does know; that he did not get an education in school.

-Mortimer Adler.

Advantages and disadvantages? ... energy of young, humbleness of old, etc..?

Here, physical difference is invoked and obviously a healthy and strong body is a bonus of youth. If you don’t have a body, living becomes problematic, but even at my age I am comfortable with myself and would not be willing to sacrifice my intellect (who I am, my life experiences, etc.) in order to have a healthy body. I prefer to have my cake and eat it too, but I’m rapidly running down to crumbs, haha!

How and Why do the old look back their youth?

Perhaps for the same reason the young look at things that have happened in their lives, except the old have more to ponder.

How and Why do the young look forward to their future state of agedness?

How about what they look forward to? This can depend greatly on the culture one is raised in. I recall looking forward to building my own house (complete with thatched roof) from sawmill rejected cuttings, growing my own food, and being a successful hunter. To own a piece of machinery would have been too much to dream for, but being near it felt good. I think Why is about independence and being more a master of your own destiny.

 

[Janitor]

My get up and go got up and went.

I noticed in my 30s that my metabolism slowed down. I used to have trouble staying over 165 lb, now I have trouble staying under 210 lb. Related to that, I stopped doing things like spontaneously leaping into the air for the fun of it, or jumping up to grab the edge of the house roof and doing chin ups. The fascination with accelerating hard in a vehicle or testing its tight-turning ability has leaked away. Learning new things seems to take longer for me now. And strangest of all to me is my sense of time. When I was a kid, on December 26 the next year's Christmas seemed soooooo far away. A year just crawled by. Right now my thinking is, Jeez, it seemed like the family just got together for the holidays, but in fact we are half way to the next one.

 

[BoulderHead]

So true, Janitor, so true.

 

[Janitor]

Here is what I fear will happen to me:

The traditional Thanksgiving when I was growing up was for my family to add extra boards to the dining table and have the extended family over to eat with us. But invariably the over-60 crowd would bring up medical topics during the meal, and I tried to concentrate real hard on my mashed potatoes or whatever, to block out what they were saying.

"Land of Goshen, Eunice. You should have seen what the doctor found in Myrtle's bowel..." Or, "Do you have any prune juice Maggie? I'm not as regular as I used to be, you know."

 

[quddusaliquddus]

The traditional Thanksgiving when I was growing up was for my family to add extra boards to the dining table and have the extended family over to eat with us. But invariably the over-60 crowd would bring up medical topics during the meal, and I tried to concentrate real hard on my mashed potatoes or whatever, to block out what they were saying.

"Land of Goshen, Eunice. You should have seen what the doctor found in Myrtle's bowel..." Or, "Do you have any prune juice Maggie? I'm not as regular as I used to be, you know."

lol. I'm in my early twenties and am starting to feel old already. There's none of the energy left and feel the same as you - time flies - and in my case - even though you're not havin fun. Very drepressing esp. since my dad's @ 60 something an he feels/acts younger. Why is our generation so lazy? ... seriously ... the things that we do outta laziness ...

 

[quddusaliquddus]

Thoughts or objects that induce related or unrelated memory recall without the limiting effect of language encapsulation

In English please ...

 

[Dagenais]

Advantages and disadvantages? ... energy of young, humbleness of old, etc..?

Advantages of being young -

Sports, obviously. You'll see a 14 year old driving a golf ball 250 yards, while a 60 year old that has been playing for his life, struggling to reach 200.

As a young person, it's easier in the washroom, which is a huge advantage.

Sales people never approach you because they know you don't have any money.

You can sit down and keep up from the sofa without making noises, groining or moaning.

Less responsibilities and the law is easier on young people.

You don't have a nagging wife.



Advantage of old people -

No High School which equals less drugs, pressure and goths.

Fully developed fashion sense that is non-existent until you hit age 24.

You probably have better alcohol tolerance.

You can remind yourself about the "Good ol' days..."

You develop decent driving skills.

You have the ability to vote.

How and Why do the young look forward to their future state of agedness?

It's sick, isn't it? I guess drinking alcohol freely is worth looking forward too, but that's if you're not in France or Ireland.

 

[quddusaliquddus]

Now the big-one, Which is better? to be old or young?

 

[Integral]

... And strangest of all to me is my sense of time. When I was a kid, on December 26 the next year's Christmas seemed soooooo far away. A year just crawled by. Right now my thinking is, Jeez, it seemed like the family just got together for the holidays, but in fact we are half way to the next one.

Time perception is relative. 1 week for a 1yr old is ~ 1/50 of his life, 1 yr for a 50yr is 1/50 of his life. This leads me to the conclusion that year for me is like a week for a baby. So as far as perception of time goes the older you get the faster it goes. What happened to the 90's?

As for the best age? Simple, the one you are currently at. Enjoy every year and every minute, there are simply not enough of them in your life time to waste wishing you were somewhere else doing something else. The Buddhist tell us to step back from life and watch it flow past as a river flows. There will be turbulent times and placid times, enjoy the placid, weather the turbulent with knowledge that the only constant in life is that everything changes.