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You know you are getting old when:

Messages
12,949
Location
Germany
But I'm still not having the need for this severve coughing, after laughing, like so many older man. I mean this 5 seconds-laughing and 5 minutes coughing, after that.

Maybe, that would be the end?? ;)
 
Messages
17,196
Location
New York City
The older I get the more accepting I've become of the temporary nature of all things. It's a reluctant acceptance, admittedly, and I almost unconsciously seek evidence to the contrary. But nope -- nothing lasts forever.

Could not agree more. Almost everything that seemed "permanent," "solid," "will be here forever" as a kid and young man is gone.

Be it little things like phone booths and milk delivery to bigger things like the importance of physical newspapers or network news - are all gone or changed. Businesses that seemed nothing could threaten them - the railroads, Western Union, AT&T, IBM, etc. - are either gone or shells of their former selves. The significance of institutions and rituals - churches, memorial day parades, unions, etc. - are greatly diminished and do not have the hold on the large segments of society that they once did.

Depending on your viewpoint, some of these changes are for the better and some for the worse, but regardless, the one constant is impermanence even in things that seemed "too strong to touch."

It makes me a bit sad, even depressed, as I feel like nothing really matters. Build a business, subscribe to a faith, join a union, invest in a company - the institution's ability to survive is subject to change as forces around it - and beyond its ability to control - change. So, how much personal passion do you really want to invest in it - any of it?

In the end, all you have is your character, your belief system, the relationships you've built (which aren't bad things to have or easy ones to build and keep), because the "stuff," even the seemingly unassailable institutions, rituals, customs, etc., are subject to change.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
xbah4i.jpg
 

ChiTownScion

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,247
Location
The Great Pacific Northwest
I enjoyed being 30. It was 34 I hated.

I became a father at 35. Financially, it makes a lot more sense to forgo parenthood until one is established, but the downside is that your energy level diminishes with age. Dealing with a baby who didn't sleep through the night for eighteen months took its toll. Not that you'd know that now: as a grown man I doubt that a nuclear detonation in his bedroom will awaken him when he's sound asleep.
 
Messages
10,933
Location
My mother's basement
I enjoyed being 30. It was 34 I hated.

I watched with amusement certain of my friends (who had a year or two or three on me) go through existential crises over turning 30.

I looked 30 when I was 20. I wasn't bald then, but I was getting there. Indeed, it was apparent during the last year or two of high school that I would be a chrome dome before much longer.

So mourning the impending loss of one's youth at all of 30 years of age struck me as mildly comical. Until my 30th rolled along. I confess that it gave me pause. Forty came and went without much angst. Fifty was sobering, in more ways then one, but not in an inordinately fearful way. Sixty had me thinking about how that once seemed an advanced age, and how much older than me so many 60-year-olds seemed.

But each decade marker carries less significance than the one before. Age may not be "just a number" (time does indeed take its toll), but it's only one part of who a person is right now, this day.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
It's known as "tinnitus".
High pitch ringing in the ears that comes from within.

Exposure to constant aircraft engines & explosions
did it for me.


I've learn to ignore it except when I'm dead tired.
Then I get the entire orchestra at full volume.

Would be nice if I could adjust the ring to a melody or
a favorite tune. :D
 
Last edited:
Messages
17,196
Location
New York City
It's known as "tinnitus".
High pitch ringing in the ears that comes from within.

Thanks to exposure to constant aircraft engines & explosions.
It's on 24/7.

I've learn to ignore it except when I dead tired.
Then I get the entire orchestra at full volume.

It would be nice if I could adjust the ring to a melody or
a favorite tune. :D

I develop tinnitus about three years ago - it is not fun going through life with a constant ringing / humming / buzzing in ones head, but compared to all the other bad stuff out there, I just kinda said, okay, I'm not going to complain.

And other than once or twice a year, I don't (it's those few times a year when everything else in life is pushing at me hard that the ringing is one more thing too much for me for that day).

I'm just hoping it doesn't get worse as it's pretty loud as it is.
 

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