
Why does no one ever tell you how brilliant ageing can be? - tropicalia
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/20/why-does-no-one-ever-tell-you-how-brilliant-ageing-can-be
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thomascgalvin
So the main thrust of this op-ed is that when you get old, you're allowed to
settle comfortably into your routines.

Those people you've been avoiding? Keep on avoiding them. Kids playing shitty
new music that sounds more like a cat being dragged across a cheese grater
than the dulcet tones of a young lover? Don't listen to it. Friends going up
to Scotland for the weekend to view, and maybe participate in, some improv?
Fuck em; stay home and watch _The Great British Baking Show_ again.

Which is all fine, but there's nothing intrinsic about aging that allows you
to do those things, or about being young that makes those things impossible.

There are good things about getting older. I'm with the person I love, and I
don't have to figure out how to hack Tinder in a desperate attempt to get
laid. I'm making more money now than I ever have. I know, more or less, who I
am and what I want to do.

But I'm also closer to losing all of those things, every day. _That 's_ what
aging is, and that's why we react so viscerally against it.

I used to be an athlete. Now, I have arthritis in my knees and shoulders, and
my physical prowess is on a slow but inevitable decline. I make plenty of
money, but that comes with significantly more responsibility, and the constant
worry that I'm getting too old to be taken seriously as an engineer. I know
who I am and what I want to do, but I worry that, despite all of the good
choices I've made, I'll never be able to actually retire and do those things.

 _That 's_ aging. I've been telling people I don't want to go to some shitty
rock concert for decades. I didn't need to turn forty to feel that it was
allowed.

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winternett
Ageism is great, it's the only thing that is guaranteed to come back to haunt
people that make fun of you for being old.

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LawnDart1
In fairness, while getting old is not ideal, it usually beats the alternative

