@mismi,
I think long life can be a curse when one is so infirm, or frail, or disabled, that they can no longer enjoy any meaningful quality of life, but medications and supportive care simply keep them going from day to day in a nursing home or in their own home with a caretaker. Particularly if one is mentally alert, it must be horrible to be imprisoned in one's body without the ability to see or hear well, or stand and walk, or feed oneself, or even to control incontinence.
Modern medicine is already able to extend lives so long that many people are left with something more like a vegetative existence rather than a life. Current ethical debates in medicine are now focusing on how much treatment should be given to an elderly patient, just to keep life going, regardless of the quality of that life.
So, more than life-weariness, or loss-weariness, one main curse of a long life might be to be stuck in a body which has essentially become useless. Or to suffer the ravages of dementia, so that the mind becomes useless, but the body goes on. The curse is to be left without any hope for a better tomorrow, and to live with a daily routine that provides no moments of pleasure, or satisfaction, or even serenity.
I can't imagine becoming life-weary. Life is just too stimulating to ever get bored or tired of it. I'd like to hang around forever, just to see how it all turns out in the end. But, that's providing I'm in the shape to be aware of it, and appreciate it, and even participate in it.
I think everyone, past a certain age, does become loss-weary. Apart from losing loved family members, I have already lost all of my close friends. That has been extremely difficult. With the death of each friend, I not only lost a treasured companion, I lost a part of myself, because I lost someone with whom I shared a history and memories, and a part of my life. Other friends and acquaintances have simply moved away, generally to be closer to their children. It is hard not to become more socially isolated as one ages, simply because of these inevitable losses. It is hard not to feel a constant sense of loss, or to think about those people who are now gone. I think most people accept this sense of loss as an inevitable part of their lives, particularly as they age, but, for some, it might be too overwhelming. And, the longer we live, the more people in our lives we will lose.
I hope I will not become so loss-weary that life will not seem worth continuing. I hope that some new people will continue to come into my life, as the old ones leave. I hope, that as time goes on, that my memories will continue to be more comforting than painful.
My own mother is 94, and in rather good health, both physically and cognitively/mentally. Other than some cardiac problems, and high blood pressure, she has no other major health issues. Until two years ago she worked part-time at a university, a place where she had been for about 47 years. I think being around young people so much of the time helped to keep her feeling and thinking young. Until a year and a half ago she drove her own car. After a series of extremely minor fender benders with her brand new car (not all of which were her fault), her insurance company doubled her rate and gave her such a hard time about renewing her policy that she finally, but reluctantly, gave up driving.
Leaving her job was very hard for her to do. All of her social contacts were at work and she has felt very lonely since she's retired. No matter how much I push her, she has no interest in going over to a senior citizen's center, even to just have some company on the days I work. And there aren't too many other options for her, in terms of meeting people or finding some pleasurable distraction, other than the senior center. And our local center happens to be exceptionally good, with a very diverse range of activities and an equally diverse range of participants. But, after spending only a few hours there one day, she decided that neither the activities nor the people were to her liking.
Giving up driving was the final blow for my mother. Her ability to get into her car and drive to a store or the library was what gave her a feeling of independence and freedom. She really could not have continued driving. Her level of concentration and her slowed reaction times could not handle that type of task, which is what those fender benders were telling her (and her insurance company). While I was somewhat relieved when she turned in her driver's license, she has been downright miserable ever since. Although I willingly drive her wherever she wants to go, she complains, constantly, of being "a prisoner in the house". She will not consider taking a taxi to go out, and has no reason for not wanting to do so.
So, at 94, my reasonably healthy and very mentally sharp mother, spends her days isolated, lonely, and extremely bored, in the house. Very little on TV, other than the news, really interests her. She reads, mainly newspapers and magazines, because her concentration and memory difficulties make it difficult for her to get really involved in a book. Having always been an avid reader, she is distressed that she can no longer immerse herself in a good book because she finds it so frustrating. She used to enjoy painting, but now has no interest in picking up a brush. The longer she is alone and unoccupied, the more she misses those people she loved who are no longer around, and the more depressed her mood gets. She gets angry and upset and often states she has lived too long, that her life is now useless and meaningless, and that she wishes she were dead. She often feels like continuing to live, at this point, is a curse for her.
My mother has become both life-weary and loss-weary, partly as a result of having attained an advanced age, but also because of her particular personality characteristics. My mother, by virtue of the fact that her physical and mental abilities are still pretty intact, could fairly easily make some changes in her life that might bring her greater satisfaction. But my mother has always been a rather passive person. She reacts, but she does not initiate. She has always been hesitant about trying new things, and now stubbornly refuses to try things. She is not used to deciding for herself what she feels like doing, and she is far more accustomed to fulfilling the roles that others expected of her. She is not from a generation where women ever thought about having independent lives. She never thought about or planned for what she might do after retirement from working. At this time, she has no roles, she has no obligations, she has no external structure or demands, and she is totally at loose ends regarding how to manage her time. For her, time has become an enemy.
So, if you were to ask my mother whether people can live too long, and can become too life-weary and too loss-weary, I think she'd answer with a resounding, "Yes!"
While some of my mother's problems are related to her particular personality, the general loss of a sense of usefulness and purpose, and the loss of independence due to infirmity or simply advanced aging, and the resultant depression that follows, may be rather common among those in my mother's age range. It's not that they have become weary with life, or depleted by losing too many loved ones, but rather that they can no longer compensate for all the loses by continuing to pursue an active lifestyle or by otherwise distracting themselves with some activities. The effort to do things may simply be too much or not worth it. This leaves too much time to think about what was, and to ponder what is missing in the present, simply because the present is so relatively impoverished.
As more people live to very advanced ages, and families are scattered and at distances, perhaps assisted living facilities or senior communes or communities, or retirement communities, will become the norm for most people, much more so than they are today. That might help to address some of the problems, but not all of them. Unfortunately, we deteriorate as we age, and our functioning becomes more and more limited. Living even longer only prolongs that process, it doesn't really change it. At the point where we feel too limited to be able to do any of things we want to do, or need to do, or where the effort of daily life has just become too much, we might all feel as though we have lived long enough.
