
Old Masters: After 80, some people don’t retire. They reign - wallflower
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/23/magazine/old-masters-at-top-of-their-game.html
======
thebear
I liked Woody Allen's answer to the question why he was still working in his
late seventies:

 _You know in a mental institution they sometimes give a person some clay or
some basket weaving? It’s the therapy of moviemaking that has been good in my
life. If you don’t work, it’s unhealthy—for me, particularly unhealthy. I
could sit here suffering from morbid introspection, ruing my mortality, being
anxious. But it’s very therapeutic to get up and think, Can I get this actor;
does my third act work? All these solvable problems that are delightful
puzzles, as opposed to the great puzzles of life that are unsolvable, or that
have very bad solutions. So I get pleasure from doing this. It’s my version of
basket weaving._

~~~
kamaal
>> If you don’t work, it’s unhealthy

This isn't just true for old people or mental unhealthy but for everybody.
Having no troubles in life can become the biggest trouble of your life. If you
are involved in some work, you have some troubles, or busy solving some
problems a great deal of smaller problems in life just come and go without you
giving a bid deal about it. If you have nothing to do, you will pick faults
every single thing, you may pick fights with family members on sorts of silly
issues. And things really get ugly from there.

And most importantly lets not forget working is one of the best ways to
network with people, meet them, share your stories- this ensures a lot of your
stress and anxiety gets a means to be vented out. Else alone, every things
builds up in a pressure cookers and bursts real ugly some day.

~~~
pgeorgi
Since that line of reason (which is a good one!) tends to be brought up when
it comes to basic income, or "end of the age of scarcity" discussions, let me
just add to this:

None of this depends on the current social contract of money seeking work
(employment, contractors, ...).

It's perfectly possible to do meaningful work with meaningful social
interactions when no money is changing hands and no threat of starvation is
looming over people.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Wait, isn't that self-evident?

~~~
infinite8s
Not to the ardent capitalist.

------
GuiA
I am currently reading _" Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles
of Artistic Creativity"_ [0].

The author starts with the observation that in the world of fine art, it seems
that the artists who encountered great success are divided into 2 broad
groups: the ones who had a clear vision (often groundbreaking) of what they
wanted to accomplish, did it while they were young, peaking early (Young
Geniuses); and the ones whose approach was more iterative, built upon theory
and learning, who never stopped improving over their lifetime, and whose
vision was established over decades (Old Masters).

To support this thesis, he looks at concrete data: for example, for the
artists whose paintings sold for the most money, at what age did they paint
the works which would later sell for the most? Or, to use an alternative
method of approximating "success" \- for the works that are most often
included in art textbooks, at what age were they painted by their authors? [1]
He goes over several measures of "success" in this way, and the data maps
pretty well with the commonly accepted wisdom for each artist (e.g. Picasso
peaked early, and his later works are nowhere as remembered as his earlier
stuff, while Cézanne took a lifetime to build his approach and vision).

He then looks into what those artists had to say about their processes, and
how that relates to those findings; and he then explores this thesis beyond
just the world of fine art.

It's a fairly dense read - especially if, like me, you have very little
knowledge of fine art (in which case I recommend looking up the works as you
read the book, even if it doubles your reading time) - but it's extremely
enlightening. Highly recommended.

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/Old-Masters-Young-Geniuses-
Creativity/...](http://www.amazon.com/Old-Masters-Young-Geniuses-
Creativity/dp/0691133808/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1414120533&sr=8-11&keywords=old+masters)

[1] [http://i.imgur.com/YmexHi8.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/YmexHi8.jpg)

~~~
FranOntanaya
There's probably no big mystery behind this. For most folks the 30's would be
when their number of dependent offspring capable of bipedal motion peaked.

~~~
louhike
As a non-native english speaker, I am not sure I get it. Do you mean they do
less things in their 30's because they have children to take care of?

~~~
Rinum
Yes, that's what he means

------
jeffreyrogers
The author of this article, Lewis Lapham [1], is himself quite accomplished at
79, and founded the magazine, _Lapham 's Quarterly_ [2], which might appeal to
some HN readers.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_H._Lapham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_H._Lapham)

[2]: [http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/](http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/)

~~~
hudibras
It's a testament to his thesis on Old Masters and Second Acts that you cite
his founding of _Lapham 's Quarterly_ instead of him being the editor of
_Harper 's_ for almost forty years.

------
diego_moita
Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer died working, at the age of 104 years. 2
years before his death he was visited by a Brazilian journalist, for an
interview. After he knew the journalist was in his late 50s he commented:

"Oh, so young! You got your whole life in front of you!"

------
chriskanan
The article is missing Ephraim Engleman, who is still a practicing medical
doctor and researcher at 103 at UCSF Medical Center:
[http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Dr-Ephraim-
Engle...](http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Dr-Ephraim-Engleman-
is-102-and-has-no-plans-to-5285486.php)

If you are doing what you love or work that is important, why retire?

~~~
billmalarky
It appears his wife is alive and well at 98. Happily married for 72 years! A
year longer than the average global lifespan.

------
kayoone
Don't fool yourself, these people are amazing, but hey are outliers. While i
understand that many people here aspire to be like this and you should,
realistically speaking these people have been very lucky. Most people 80+
either have trouble walking, hearing, seeing, thinking (or any combination
combined). It's longer than the average lifespan, so that these people can
still do their work in a meaningful way is a godsend. Sure, you can do a lot
with a healthy lifestyle, but still there are limits to your genes, or life
could take unexpected turns every second. My uncle, 62 years old, CEO of a
bank, who was always healthy and fit just had a stroke and is now wheelchair
bound and does not know which year it is. Meanwhile, his brother (my dad), has
been smoking his whole life and not exercised for decades but is still fine.
he probably won't get to 80 though, and he knows that.

------
nostromo
I found this study to be interesting, regarding retirement age.

[http://ftp.iza.org/dp5160.pdf](http://ftp.iza.org/dp5160.pdf)

> For males, we find that a reduction in the effective retirement age causes a
> significant increase in the risk of premature death

> We do not find that earlier effective retirement increases the risk of
> premature death for females, however

~~~
hkmurakami
I have to initially suspect that this difference between the genders has at
least something to do with the fact that often -- particularly in the eras of
the currently elderly -- the "work" of a female extended well beyond the
office and into the household. Retirement may end the office duties, but the
household duties will continue.

~~~
clarkm
I doubt that contributes, because it's not just limited to humans. Females of
most species live longer than males.

~~~
NeverEnough
he is suggesting it as an explanation for retirement contributing to premature
death in men more than in women, not the difference in life expectancy in
general.

~~~
thisGuysAccount
It could be related to post-retirement activities.

Men, as a hypothetical, might take up drinking and fishing, leading to an
increase in mortality caused by liver failure, cancer, what have you.

Women, again as a hypothetical, might take up other activities that don't
increase mortality.

------
MattGrommes
Reminds me of the story Merlin Mann tells about the butcher who when asked
what trick he uses to know that he picked up exactly a pound of meat responds
"Be a butcher for 20 years".

~~~
jkaunisv1
That's kung fu, and it's extremely satisfying to cultivate it in everything
you do. I've been inspired to learn how to do stuff like that since I saw a
chef drop ingredients into a recipe without measuring.

------
boblozano
Dr. Jerry Cox is 89, leads his latest startup[1], remains a sr. cs professor
@WashU[2], sold a company he co-founded (Growth Networks) for >$355M to Cisco
in 2000, and is generally smart and inspiring. Also sat for a formal oral
history focused on his contributions to biomedical computing[3].

[1] [http://blendics.com/team/](http://blendics.com/team/)

[2]
[http://cse.wustl.edu/PEOPLE/Pages/cox.aspx](http://cse.wustl.edu/PEOPLE/Pages/cox.aspx)

[3]
[http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/oral/transcripts/cox.html](http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/oral/transcripts/cox.html)

------
carlisle_
>I’m guessing there is no point to asking when you plan on retiring?

>I’m going to retire in a box being carried out of my office.

Brilliant.

~~~
GFischer
He sounds a little like the former president of the company I work for
(President is higher than CEO over here).

He was extremely hardworking, wise and smart, he knew the business in and out,
but he was pretty much set in his ways and did not delegate, and was hampering
the company's growth (many of this kind of people try to keep their company
manageable by themselves).

He ended up being overthrown by a brilliantly executed palace coup (by a
sociopath, but I digress), but he would have stayed until his death if left to
his own decision.

Actually, for some of the most driven workaholics, being retired is kind of a
death sentence, it really does shorten their lives (most, being old, don't
adapt to change well).

My father is still young, but I'm betting he's going to do the same (he is the
head of a law firm), and I'm glad not to have followed his career, he's going
to cast a shadow over his potential successors for decades.

~~~
fuzzywalrus
My grandfather is cut from the same cloth, at 87 he still still farms and does
hard physical labor. He's slowed down and is semi-retired but he golfs nearly
every day when not working (carries his own bag for 18 holes). Retirement
isn't an option for some people...

------
leoc
What, no props to our main man here?
[http://cs.stanford.edu/~uno/](http://cs.stanford.edu/~uno/)
[http://laughingsquid.com/jacob-appelbaum-donald-knuth-
demons...](http://laughingsquid.com/jacob-appelbaum-donald-knuth-demonstrate-
the-recursive-homeboys-principle/) All right, he isn't quite 80 _yet_ , but
looking good so far...

------
lateguy
One Great example for above will be Jiri One: A Japanese Master chef for
shushi, I would say if there is only one documentary you will see this month.
Let it be this one:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiro_Dreams_of_Sushi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiro_Dreams_of_Sushi)

~~~
myth_buster
Highly recommended. Available on Netflix.

~~~
lateguy
Will be glad to know , what you learnt from it?

~~~
Fuzzwah
I found Jiro's son to be the more interesting character. The way he talks
about being raised in the shadow of a master and choosing to follow in his
father's footsteps is touching.

------
japhyr
One of my heroes is Fred Beckey. He's a lifelong climber, and is still
climbing into his 90's.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Beckey](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Beckey)

[http://www.mountainproject.com/v/fred-beckey-90-years-old-
cl...](http://www.mountainproject.com/v/fred-beckey-90-years-old-climbing-in-
jtree/107955528)

~~~
Evgeny
I will add him to the list of my heroes, right next to Jack Lalanne, who was a
fitness enthusiast and lived a healthy and active life till 96.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_LaLanne](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_LaLanne)

~~~
whatusername
[http://www.elitefeet.com/the-legend-of-cliff-
young](http://www.elitefeet.com/the-legend-of-cliff-young) might be of
interest. (I think that take is only 80% accurate -- but it captures the drama
of his most famous achievement (at age 61!) better than Wikipedia:
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_(athlete)](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_\(athlete\))
)

~~~
japhyr
That's an incredible and inspiring story. Thanks for sharing, I had never
heard of him before.

------
thrownaway2424
I thought Robert Caro would belong on this list. He amazes me, having written
over the course of five decades two seminal books, both of which earned
Pulitzer prizes. But he's "only" 79.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Caro](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Caro)

------
pyrrhotech
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Kahn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Kahn)

Irving Kahn, still working on Wall Street at 108--and finding stocks to buy
for the long run

------
sireat
If you have been doing something all your life and you enjoy doing it why
stop?

However, the question I have been struggling with lately has been: how do you
pick up something new later on in life?

If you start to learn basket-weaving at 40, you are not going to be a great
basket-weaver.

If you start programming at 40, you are not going to become Bill Joy or
Fabrice Bellard, sorry. (counterexamples in any field welcome)

Your 10k hours count for much less at 40 than at 15. That guy(Danplan) who
started golfing to become a Pro at 28 is slowly starting to find that out
despite his progress.

So you have to pick your fights very carefully, if you are a chess master you
can probably become a decent shogi or go player and vice versa.

If you have a solid foundation in math, you can probably do decent physics
work at 40.

However, and this is what worries me, if your art in grade 5 was dismal, are
you going to be able to get decent at 40?

That one lady in article sold her first painting at 89, but the question is
whether she took up painting late in life or was that just a lucky fluke.
(selling != enjoying painting)

~~~
thisGuysAccount
I'm going to guess you're either around 20 and just don't know many people who
took up new pursuits in their later years, or that you're late 50s and haven't
seen peers put the same amount of effort they put in when they were in their
20s.

Most of the 15, 20 year olds I know who are _good_ at something are almost
obsessive about it. It's not just that they're young, it's that they're really
hard workers.

~~~
sireat
In fact I am neither, I am in my early 40s and thus my question.

I too was obsessive about certain things(programming, chess) at that age. My
problem is that this is not enough anymore when you are older. Even if you
have all the time in the world, you will not be able to improve as much as
some 15 year old in a year of intense study. So it goes.

I do not want to get bad at something, I want to get decent at something that
would help people be it basket-weaving, or teaching German philosophy from
original German texts.

My pet theory for some time has been that in order to achieve something
significant in some field, you must have done a lot of deliberate practice
before reaching certain age.

So some talent, lots of hard work and age < 20(25) are necessary conditions.
The age part has mostly been ignored, while hard work part has been
emphasized.

------
rfrey
My favourite examples are two woodworkers who I admire greatly, Sam Maloof and
James Krenov. Maloof was still making his rockers at 94, maybe a bit slower
but not much.

Krenov sadly lost much of his eyesight in his late 80s so stopped making
cabinets. But he continued to make planes, because he could make them by feel.

------
csbrooks
I loved the article.

One note: not all retirement is necessarily sitting in front of the tv waiting
to die. My grandfather is 81, and he and his wife are very active RVers. They
travel around the country, hike, go four wheeling in their jeep. He seems
about as happy as the people in the article.

------
dag11
Betty White's responses are fantastic. Her humor really shines through!

------
brandall10
Why is there no mention of Frank Lloyd Wright?

The man is one of the most celebrated architects in the history of the field,
and he created his masterwork (Fallingwater) when he was 71. Furthermore, his
output over the last 20 years of his life accounted for more than half of his
lifetime output. He died while in the middle of creating the Guggenheim -
simply did not stop.

Interestingly enough his life arc was quite similar to Steve Jobs.

------
hoprocker
Beautiful photos, fascinating interview snippets. I love compelling narratives
that remind us that life isn't over at 30.

------
nobody_nowhere
"I just love to work" \- Betty White.

Love this article. Be realistic. Recognize patterns. Love what do you do.
Inspiring.

------
IvyMike
I know we have skepticism over the 10k hours of practice theory, but I still
kinda like it, at least in broad strokes.

And if there's going to be another "10x" level, these are probably them. 100k
hours of effortful practice, at 2500 hours per year = 40 years. Crazy.

~~~
Kluny
James Altucher had a great spin on it. He says that maybe it takes 10,000
hours to master something, but with only 1000 hours, you can get pretty good.
And that only takes a year of fitting it in for 20 hours a week. Even 100
hours of practice at any particular skill will make you better at it than most
people, and you can do that in like 2 hours a week for 6 months. If you feel
like mastering it after that, go for it, but if you frame it as "I can have a
new skill after about 6 months of practice" instead of "I can be a master in
10 years of super hard work", you're a lot more likely to try it.

------
bttf
I'm surprised no one has considered how older aged workers fit in the software
engineering industry. From my experience it seems like the older you get, the
less viable you are.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Your experience is that you are less viable as time marches on? Or you
perceive older people to be so?

Where I worked the "10x" engineers (who are legendary) are among the eldest.

~~~
lmm
I'm not even 30 and I feel like my skills are in decline. I can cover it up
with experience - I know the libraries and tools and how to use them, and that
can make you 100x faster. But I'm getting set in my ways after seeing what
does and doesn't work so many times, and I'm losing the ability to just do
something without thinking it through.

~~~
beagle3
:)

You are becoming more valuable (in the sense of being able to deliver more
absolute value). But you are becoming less of a commodity, which means
employers are also becoming less of a commodity for you.

To prepare for the future, you need to look into marketing yourself
"wholesale" (that is, sell completed projects rather then into a team), and/or
establish a network of people who care about fundamentals and not the latest
hotness.

I turned down a hadoop job awhile ago, because it was hurting me to do things
so stupidly. (I managed to do the same thing on C at 1/10 of the time on one
machine as the project did on 10 machines using Hadoop, but they insisted that
"hadoop is the thing"). If I was hungry for food, I might just deal with these
pains. I'm obviously less employable right now than I was in my 20s when I was
happy to use any stupid technology - but I'm happier for it.

------
mcguire
" _So how do you stay in shape?_

" _I have a two-story house and a very bad memory, so I’m up and down those
stairs all the time. That’s my exercise._ "

I love Betty White.

------
gadders
I feel sorry for the 80 year old manual workers. I would expect it's harder
for them...

------
Sprezzaturian
I am 42 and I am retired - and loving it. It means I have all the time in the
world for doing things I really like, instead of staring at stock market
charts all day long.

mikaelsyding.com

------
ExpiredLink
Unfortunately, writing programs isn't an occupation for old people.

EDIT: To be more precise, I cannot image that I will write a program after my
retirement. To me, writing ephemeral programs is the opposite of the artful
activities described in the article.

~~~
DanBC
Surpising to see discrimination expressed so blatantly. Luckily it's illegal
in at least US[1], UK[2], etc etc.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_Discrimination_in_Employmen...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_Discrimination_in_Employment_Act_of_1967)

[2] [http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/private-and-public-
sector...](http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/private-and-public-sector-
guidance/guidance-all/protected-characteristics)

~~~
ColinCera
Unluckily those laws are basically unenforceable and age discrimination in
software development is rampant.

