How Old Is Old?

I guess opinions aren't the only thing one should keep to oneself.

Actually, I think, that the ideas of who is old not only change during the personal age but although during the historical time periods.

For instance, when I was at school in the 50's/60's generally (especially) females above 50 or 60 were though to be old: since a lot of them were (war) widows, they were wearing "widow costumes" = black clothes.

I'm 26 and sometimes that feels ancient.
I agree that a lot of it has to do with your mind set.

It's funny, but I only seem to think of myself as old when i'm feeling negative.
The rest of the time it seems irrelevent.

I used to work in an 'old age home' as an activities director/care giver.
Most of the people there were very sick or otherwise unable to care for themselves.
There were all sorts of characters there.
I noticed that it was a 'zest for life' that made the difference in whether I viewed the person as old or not. Someone 90+ who was somehow happy and kind even while being in very difficult circumstances themselves, actually looked physically younger to me. Take that same person in the same situation, but miserable and cranky, and they look older. Naturally, some people were depressed - and it was my job to try and help them out. Staying positive and involved really make a huge difference in being able to cope, whether you're 26 or 96. I try to remember that!

I clearly remember being sort of appalled that our office nurse, when I worked after college classes at an md's office, was turning 26. We all had a party for her that day - and yet she was cheerful.

Shows how much I knew. I was eighteen or nineteen then. She was 26 and not married.... Now it is like looking at a calcified pellet of myself to remember that.

I don't know who said not to trust anyone over thirty... seems to me it was one of the Stones, but I'm not sure. I then thought that someone of, say, 46, was really old. Sixty, especially for a woman, was very old. Eighty was very very old.

I did trust people over thirty, or some of them, some of the time.

As I grew older my window of old expanded.
And still does.

More interesting to me is my widening of "within my time" of history... at this point I'm comfy with Cellini's autobiography and earlier, the stirrings of the early renaissance. That didn't happen until I got to be forty and began to read more over wider times. And as just doubling my age started to add up.

I've had a tendency for a while that is sort of the opposite of the over thirty thing, which is to think of those under whatever (27?) as benighted in some way.

A2k has been helpful for that. One of the smartest but also in many ways most discerning people I've run across is Craven, who is young now and was most young when I first ran across him. Cav, who I've thought of as genius walking, did and do, or at least wonderfully developed and expressive human, was quite young.

A2k has helped me remember how brilliant some young can be, and they are not all shallow - at all.
I already know how brilliant some older people can be.
Can they not despair is more the question.

Even though "asking" is not the word, I keep training for when I'll be 70 :wink:

How "old" will I be then, that's the problem.

Funny...it was Jerry Rubin and the "yippies" who said "never trust anyone over 30," right? I saw a documentary about the Chicago 7 years ago, and Jerry Rubin is now a member of the Republican party. He watches his diet and walks his poodle.

That scares the **** out of me.

A man I know slightly, according to his wife, considered himself old at age thirty. For about twelve months he lived according to his concept of a life virtually over, doing almost nothing. Then he gradually recovered, reverting to his old ways.

Which? The diet or the poodle?

one thing i have noticed about myself ... the older iget, the more i can laugh about just about anything ... good or bad ? ... oh, i really don't care, i just laugh. hbg

Just wait until you start quietly tittering to yourself.

"Old age is always 15 years older than you are."
--Bernard Baruch

That's enough to get anybody tittering.Is Mr Baruch a genius or what?

I remember reading a quote that goes something like:
"40 is the old age of youth, 50 is the youth of old age."

The one Baruch I know is Spinoza...

He's a bit of a handful eh?

My mother had a wonderful line, "I'm in my declining years and I decline to do suchandso--or whatever nasty little chore was being foisted upon her.

Being in your declining years is wonderful. I've paid my dues.

"quietly" ? - no way ! hbg

Phenomenologically, the most obvious change for me as I enter old age is not how old I perceive myself to be but how young others have become. I remember when the perfect age for a gal was the twenties, then it became thirty something, then they were too young for me. As a college professor I saw these women as pimply kids--never had any desire to flirt with them. Now a gal in her forties is too young. Fifties maybe, a youthful sixty something is ideal. Then, again, I wish I still had my 1970 Maverick. Some things never become too old; they grow to be historic.

can i have my 1959 VW "beetle" back again , please ? it served us well (but was somewhat slow in giving service) for nine years. VW's were still somewhat rare in canada in the late 50's/early 60's and VW drivers would greet each other with a wave of the hand.
the car didn't have a rear window defroster, so on cold winter days ehbeth would sometimes sit in the rear cargo bin with an ice-scraper to keep the rear window clean. no radio either, but ehbeth had a good voice. hbg