9 ms·

What If Age Is Nothing but a Mind-Set?

177 points by adriand 12y ago

gilrain 12y ago
If it's a mindset you can't change willfully, then it's not usefully a mindset. This is also what makes depression a disease, not simply a mindset.
- Dewie 12y ago
  In the sense that the participants in the first study had their whole surroundings changed and molded in order for them to live in the past; yeah, most of us can't really use that as a viable strategy for feeling younger. As far as a mindset in itself though, is changing your mindset something that is impossible? Most of us don't even really make an effort at all, so I tend to think of it as a largely uninvestigated area (as far as most people are concerned).
- VLM 12y ago
  For a related tangential idea to "mindset you can't change willfully", think of a continuum along two axis, one of addiction/habit vs mere temporal coincidence and the other axis of fix it yourself vs professional intervention. Maybe a third axis of success rate! And a fourth axis of success of introspection/interpretation something like (reality) - (the victims observation). Another fun related tangent is the article examples were very pedestrian and conventional, I wonder what the article readers would think about old dudes at a SCA event or a civil war re-enactor event. Or a star trek convention. Or a Renaissance Faire.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
draugadrotten 12y ago
Age is a mindset in the same way suffocating is. You may feel as if you're suffocating when you are not, but if you are suffocating, you are suffocating even if you don't realize it.
- noonnee 12y ago
  No matter how much you trust it, just having apple juice won't cure you from pancreatic cancer.
  - valarauca1 12y ago
    Yes but you can mediate out of an asthma attack
    - noonnee 12y ago
      I'd agree 100% with you if the article was about dealing with immediate problems.
- jonifico 12y ago
  The way you put it is the closest I've found to my opinion. I mean, it's definitely not just a mindset when you realize you can't run as you did when you were 20 and played football, but maybe you haven't even noticed cause you haven't played football since your 20s. If it is a mindset, it's one that heavily depends on the moment.
  - AnimalMuppet 12y ago
    I'm 52. I still play football. But now I cover the slowest opposing player, not the fastest. My approach has been that I'll keep doing things until my body proves to me that I can't. It has started doing so. You can ignore age longer than many people think, but not forever...
    - jonifico 12y ago
      If my body responds like yours, I still have a good three decades of activity. I can live with that. But yeah, as long as you keep a strong mind I suppose you can get over the limitations, that's until your body collapses.
      - 12y ago
eccstartup 12y ago
I still prefer to have a girlfriend younger than me.
cafard 12y ago
A few winters ago, I took a 20-year-old car into a shop. The guy who ran it diagnosed and fixed a problem the dealership had missed. I asked him about the status of the car. Well, he said, cars are like people. You can be in good shape for your age at 70, but that's not like being in good shape for your age at 30.
- nkozyra 12y ago
  The noteworthy distinction is we can rebuild a car from scratch - a great many human "parts" are irreplaceable. I hope we're really considering the effect of widespread longer life might have instead of barreling toward longevity - people living 10 years longer on average could have a pretty devastating effect on a lot of things. And I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, but we should be really thinking about how we'd mitigate that impact.
  - CmonDev 12y ago
    I am happy to cause a devastating effect as long as I am living 10 years longer.
  - RankingMember 12y ago
    Maybe we could stop freaking out about keeping birth rates high? "Devastating" carries a negative connotation. If the quality of life for that additional 10 years is good, I'd call it a positive. If it's 10 years hooked up to machines where your brain's working at half capacity, then yeah, that's a negative.
    - nkozyra 12y ago
      I'm speaking more about devastating to infrastructure. Social systems (social security, employment rates), healthcare availability, etc.
      - PeterisP 12y ago
        Well, if it turns out to be such a big problem, then we can just kill everyone at a specific age. That's sarcasm, of course, but IMHO saying that we shouldn't prolong life because of possible consequence X is morally exactly equal to saying that we should kill old people to avoid that consequence X. For every X, either X really is so bad that it's worth killing people for it; or X shouldn't be considered as a valid argument against longevity.
tempodox 12y ago
Of course age, especially old age, is nothing but a mindset. As we all know from StarTrek, we're only getting old and die because the cells in our bodies get irredeemably bored (hinting to the possibility that some cells have better tastes than the individual they're forming). And the situation isn't improved by the nocebo effect of incessant rumours about human mortality. So, don't believe anything you hear...
- soylentcola 12y ago
  "we're only getting old and die because the cells in our bodies get irredeemably bored (hinting to the possibility that some cells have better tastes than the individual they're forming)." Very Douglas Adams.
- barrkel 12y ago
  I just watched that DS9 episode last night!
teekert 12y ago
The study, which is planned for the spring, is designed to include three groups of 24 women with Stage 4 breast cancer who are in stable condition and undergoing hormonal therapy. Two groups will gather at resorts in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, under the supervision of Langer and her staff. The experimental group will live for a week in surroundings that evoke 2003, a date when all the women were healthy and hopeful, living without a mortal threat hanging over them. They will be told to try to inhabit their former selves. Few clues of the present day will be visible inside the resorts or, for that matter, outside them. In the living areas, turn-of-the-millennium magazines will be lying around, as will DVDs of films like “Titanic” and “The Big Lebowski.” San Miguel de Allende, which has historically been a place known for its nearby healing mineral springs, is a Unesco World Heritage Site, and many of its buildings look as they did a few hundred years ago. “The whole town is a time capsule,” Langer says. (The other group at San Miguel will have the support of fellow cancer patients but will not live in the past; a third group will not experience any research intervention.) WTF. And what happens when you had cancer in 2003 but got cured, would it come back? Better avoid The Big Lebowski in that case.
- fhnjh 12y ago
  If this is a real effect, it does not necessarily involve magic. I find it quite easy to imagine an organism evolving to subtly alter it's physical state according to the function of it's nervous system. Why is it so hard to believe that the mind controls the body at a cellular level? Even if this is a magical effect, it can still be codified and brought within the bounds of scientific discourse.
  - teekert 12y ago
    First of all, "evolving" happens by selective pressures and over generations on a population level. But I see what you mean, you mean changing to accommodate to the environment. But here we are not talking about tanning to compensate for increased UV exposure, we are not even talking about changing to match our environment, we are talking about reducing an illness by evoking memories of the past by physical objects. Unless this past environment was one that actually kills cancers cells (I don't know how the Big Lebowksi might do that) or perhaps reduces tumor growth I can't imagine any way how this can work. What I can imagine is going on a time out, reducing stress and thus biological stress responses does have an influence on a tumor. I hope they are compensating for this effect. They should have a control group in a reduced stress environment (or something that mimics all evironmental variables of the back-in-time room but for the back-in-time aspect) perhaps with a bluray disc of Lucy. Hey or perhaps dumbphones induce less stress. Perhaps you get better sleep in the 2003 environment, light/circadian rithm is known to influence cancer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_factors_for_breast_cancer#Light_at_night_and_disturbance_of_circadian_rhythm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_factors_for_breast_cancer#... Et cetera et cetera, et cetera
exratione 12y ago
It's amazing the stuff that gets funded in the research community in place of, you know, actually addressing the physical, biochemical causes of aging.
- Broken_Hippo 12y ago
  This isn't "in place of" any research: This is different and honestly, it is hard to tell if this will wind up being important or not. This is research that is testing how to make people feel better as they age. I mean, if someone could feel just a little better and that little bit of feeling and performing better means they are able to move more and be healthier and stuff? Besides, this is looking at the mind-body connection in aging. Maybe this leads to research on different ways neurotransmitters react and the result of aging on the chemicals - and on and on. Maybe this research will inspire others. Research can lead to more research, when allowed.
- mcguire 12y ago
  How much of the consequences of ageing are physical or biochemical, and how much are psychological?
cLeEOGPw 12y ago
So as we know the older brain gets, the more things it learns. The more things it learns, the less "space" there is left to learn new things. The less "space" there is left, the more difficult it is to absorb new information and learn new concepts. In order to overcome that, brain must unlearn old things. Unlearning is not easy process and requires much more energy than simple learning in young age. So in a way it is mindset, but not in a meaningful way.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- wtetzner 12y ago
  I wasn't aware this was the case. Where can I read more about how the brain runs out of "space" as we learn more things?
  - cLeEOGPw 12y ago
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/science/older-brain-is-willing-but-too-full-for-new-memories.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/science/older-brain-is-wil... also http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10584927/Brains-of-elderly-slow-because-they-know-so-much.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10584927/Bra... Nice to see many self righteous people downvoting without even trying to discuss.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
kuni-toko-tachi 12y ago
As corny as "The Secret" is, this is exactly the same principle at work. Establishing the correct mindset is the fertile ground for achieving any purpose.
ad80 12y ago
"We hope you’ve enjoyed your 10 free articles this month."
- kator 12y ago
  Open in an incognito window.. :)
madaxe_again 12y ago
There's probably something to this. I've been a miserable old man since the age of about 19, and I'm now 31, with arthritis, gall stones and kidney stones. I think it was Seneca who said something along the lines of "When I think as an old man, I have become an old man.". This isn't new knowledge, but something that we seem to have to keep reminding ourselves of. Also, placebos.
- otakucode 12y ago
  Or, perhaps more apt to your point, nocebos.
thunderbong 12y ago
The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young. - Oscar Wilde
tunap 12y ago
When I was young, 'all' of what I learned was unique. As I aged, the newness waned as I recognized patterns and deemed repackaged ideas as innovative applications. Now well into my 40's, I can still find 'new' when I leave the daily repetitive habit of life and deliberately search outside my comfort zone, but most events now seem stale & tired. The accumulation of knowledge and experience has changed the aspect in which I see and participate within my immediate environment. That is not to say I am or I feel old, it is only that my perspective of life has changed, my aspirations beyond my abilities have been quashed and I am no longer gullible enough to believe the ungrounded, optimistic concepts public education, media marketing and sociopath bosses/users/scammers try to feed me every day. Frankly, despite chronic aches from accumulated injuries and evolving sensations of fatigue, I only feel young when young people remind me I'm not young. YMMV. Edit: Didn't read the mc-article who's sole purpose is to sell advertising...another 'old' thing I've picked up over the years.
api 12y ago
As I age, I've found that I have to expend constant effort to repel the "wisdom" of my cohort as they become cynical, loveless, self-limiting, and as they give up on their dreams. I do think it's a mindset -- a mindset called "aging" which gives us a sense that it is somehow an inevitable byproduct of the biological process that goes by the same name. Barring something amazing out of SENS research, I can't do anything about the biological process. But I can do something about that. I've found little things that help. I occasionally do an experiment where I restrict my music collection to nothing more than five years old. I'll sometimes admit older things only if I was not listening to them when I was a teenager or early-20-something... if they are new to me. It's curiously effective, since central to the ideology of aging is that everything is getting worse than it was "back in my day." If you try this and find your collection sparse, go and find more. Music is a very condensed form of human expression. It carries a lot with it. Other things that work include avoiding excessive and routine alcohol consumption, changing your setting, getting rid of old things, and learning pretty much anything new.
- protonfish 12y ago
  I like your thoughts, but I wouldn't call the mindset "aging." But what to call it? Maybe "being an asshole."
  - api 12y ago
    People seem to call it aging... or rather it seems to happen to people as they "age." But yes, it involves a fair amount of assholery. Another observation: I have children, and I have not given up on my dreams. I find many people who say you can't pursue your dreams with kids. IMHO those people have given up on their dreams for other reasons and are blaming their children for that. It's a shitty thing to do-- your kids want you to have dreams, since it will inspire them.
    - protonfish 12y ago
      Agreed. One of the most important duties of a parent is to serve a positive example by living how you would want your children to live. I know too many whining self-martyrs that believe the quality of parenting is proportional to the amount of misery they are in. I don't believe that is true and these parents are not only failing themselves, but their families as well.
grecy 12y ago
I believe it for sure. When I was 27 I took a white water guide course up here in the Yukon. The instructor was doing backflips out of the raft in class 3 rapids, swimming for fun in water that was a few degrees above freezing, hauling more than his share of the raft, flipping it and righting it again in the middle of the river, etc. etc. The instructor was 68 years old, and he's one of many people up here more than twice my age that can out-do me, and I'm no slouch.
- pedalpete 12y ago
  This topic has come up a few times in the last few days with friends. I'm 41, but most people think I'm in my early 30s. I'm from Whistler, BC, where most people look and act significantly younger than city-folk of the same age. I'd like to see a study like this one where rather than having people reminisce and pretend time hasn't passed, they spend more time around a younger crowd. I suspect that has an equal effect.
  - grecy 12y ago
    Yup, 100%. I just found out my current boss is 47, I would have said he was late 30s.
- 2muchcoffeeman 12y ago
  Which probably has more to do with him keeping active throughout his life, taking care of himself and a dose of good genetics. We already know that exercise and a good diet can slow down the effects of ageing.
jmount 12y ago
Then you can drink all the soda you want? ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8488714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8488714 )
gojomo 12y ago
When online ad networks know your age, they show you 'age-appropriate' advertising (that can be quite depressing). So be sure to tell advertisers and online sites only the age you want subconsciously-reinforced!
jcagalawan 12y ago
That bit about half-speed and double speed clocks is intriguing. For those that don't play Starcraft, all games run at ~1.4 times normal time.[1] A lot of players usually have the in-game clock, which is running fast, showing during gameplay. I wonder what effect that has had.

177 points by adriand 12y ago

If it's a mindset you can't change willfully, then it's not usefully a mindset. This is also what makes depression a disease, not simply a mindset.

Dewie 12y ago
In the sense that the participants in the first study had their whole surroundings changed and molded in order for them to live in the past; yeah, most of us can't really use that as a viable strategy for feeling younger. As far as a mindset in itself though, is changing your mindset something that is impossible? Most of us don't even really make an effort at all, so I tend to think of it as a largely uninvestigated area (as far as most people are concerned).
VLM 12y ago
For a related tangential idea to "mindset you can't change willfully", think of a continuum along two axis, one of addiction/habit vs mere temporal coincidence and the other axis of fix it yourself vs professional intervention. Maybe a third axis of success rate! And a fourth axis of success of introspection/interpretation something like (reality) - (the victims observation). Another fun related tangent is the article examples were very pedestrian and conventional, I wonder what the article readers would think about old dudes at a SCA event or a civil war re-enactor event. Or a star trek convention. Or a Renaissance Faire.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

draugadrotten 12y ago

Age is a mindset in the same way suffocating is. You may feel as if you're suffocating when you are not, but if you are suffocating, you are suffocating even if you don't realize it.

noonnee 12y ago
No matter how much you trust it, just having apple juice won't cure you from pancreatic cancer.
- valarauca1 12y ago
  Yes but you can mediate out of an asthma attack
  - noonnee 12y ago
    I'd agree 100% with you if the article was about dealing with immediate problems.
jonifico 12y ago
The way you put it is the closest I've found to my opinion. I mean, it's definitely not just a mindset when you realize you can't run as you did when you were 20 and played football, but maybe you haven't even noticed cause you haven't played football since your 20s. If it is a mindset, it's one that heavily depends on the moment.
- AnimalMuppet 12y ago
  I'm 52. I still play football. But now I cover the slowest opposing player, not the fastest. My approach has been that I'll keep doing things until my body proves to me that I can't. It has started doing so. You can ignore age longer than many people think, but not forever...
  - jonifico 12y ago
    If my body responds like yours, I still have a good three decades of activity. I can live with that. But yeah, as long as you keep a strong mind I suppose you can get over the limitations, that's until your body collapses.
    - 12y ago

eccstartup 12y ago

I still prefer to have a girlfriend younger than me.

cafard 12y ago

A few winters ago, I took a 20-year-old car into a shop. The guy who ran it diagnosed and fixed a problem the dealership had missed. I asked him about the status of the car. Well, he said, cars are like people. You can be in good shape for your age at 70, but that's not like being in good shape for your age at 30.

nkozyra 12y ago
The noteworthy distinction is we can rebuild a car from scratch - a great many human "parts" are irreplaceable. I hope we're really considering the effect of widespread longer life might have instead of barreling toward longevity - people living 10 years longer on average could have a pretty devastating effect on a lot of things. And I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, but we should be really thinking about how we'd mitigate that impact.
- CmonDev 12y ago
  I am happy to cause a devastating effect as long as I am living 10 years longer.
- RankingMember 12y ago
  Maybe we could stop freaking out about keeping birth rates high? "Devastating" carries a negative connotation. If the quality of life for that additional 10 years is good, I'd call it a positive. If it's 10 years hooked up to machines where your brain's working at half capacity, then yeah, that's a negative.
  - nkozyra 12y ago
    I'm speaking more about devastating to infrastructure. Social systems (social security, employment rates), healthcare availability, etc.
    - PeterisP 12y ago
      Well, if it turns out to be such a big problem, then we can just kill everyone at a specific age. That's sarcasm, of course, but IMHO saying that we shouldn't prolong life because of possible consequence X is morally exactly equal to saying that we should kill old people to avoid that consequence X. For every X, either X really is so bad that it's worth killing people for it; or X shouldn't be considered as a valid argument against longevity.

tempodox 12y ago

Of course age, especially old age, is nothing but a mindset. As we all know from StarTrek, we're only getting old and die because the cells in our bodies get irredeemably bored (hinting to the possibility that some cells have better tastes than the individual they're forming). And the situation isn't improved by the nocebo effect of incessant rumours about human mortality. So, don't believe anything you hear...

soylentcola 12y ago
"we're only getting old and die because the cells in our bodies get irredeemably bored (hinting to the possibility that some cells have better tastes than the individual they're forming)." Very Douglas Adams.
barrkel 12y ago
I just watched that DS9 episode last night!

teekert 12y ago

The study, which is planned for the spring, is designed to include three groups of 24 women with Stage 4 breast cancer who are in stable condition and undergoing hormonal therapy. Two groups will gather at resorts in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, under the supervision of Langer and her staff. The experimental group will live for a week in surroundings that evoke 2003, a date when all the women were healthy and hopeful, living without a mortal threat hanging over them. They will be told to try to inhabit their former selves. Few clues of the present day will be visible inside the resorts or, for that matter, outside them. In the living areas, turn-of-the-millennium magazines will be lying around, as will DVDs of films like “Titanic” and “The Big Lebowski.” San Miguel de Allende, which has historically been a place known for its nearby healing mineral springs, is a Unesco World Heritage Site, and many of its buildings look as they did a few hundred years ago. “The whole town is a time capsule,” Langer says. (The other group at San Miguel will have the support of fellow cancer patients but will not live in the past; a third group will not experience any research intervention.) WTF. And what happens when you had cancer in 2003 but got cured, would it come back? Better avoid The Big Lebowski in that case.

fhnjh 12y ago
If this is a real effect, it does not necessarily involve magic. I find it quite easy to imagine an organism evolving to subtly alter it's physical state according to the function of it's nervous system. Why is it so hard to believe that the mind controls the body at a cellular level? Even if this is a magical effect, it can still be codified and brought within the bounds of scientific discourse.
- teekert 12y ago
  First of all, "evolving" happens by selective pressures and over generations on a population level. But I see what you mean, you mean changing to accommodate to the environment. But here we are not talking about tanning to compensate for increased UV exposure, we are not even talking about changing to match our environment, we are talking about reducing an illness by evoking memories of the past by physical objects. Unless this past environment was one that actually kills cancers cells (I don't know how the Big Lebowksi might do that) or perhaps reduces tumor growth I can't imagine any way how this can work. What I can imagine is going on a time out, reducing stress and thus biological stress responses does have an influence on a tumor. I hope they are compensating for this effect. They should have a control group in a reduced stress environment (or something that mimics all evironmental variables of the back-in-time room but for the back-in-time aspect) perhaps with a bluray disc of Lucy. Hey or perhaps dumbphones induce less stress. Perhaps you get better sleep in the 2003 environment, light/circadian rithm is known to influence cancer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_factors_for_breast_cancer#Light_at_night_and_disturbance_of_circadian_rhythm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_factors_for_breast_cancer#... Et cetera et cetera, et cetera

exratione 12y ago

It's amazing the stuff that gets funded in the research community in place of, you know, actually addressing the physical, biochemical causes of aging.

Broken_Hippo 12y ago
This isn't "in place of" any research: This is different and honestly, it is hard to tell if this will wind up being important or not. This is research that is testing how to make people feel better as they age. I mean, if someone could feel just a little better and that little bit of feeling and performing better means they are able to move more and be healthier and stuff? Besides, this is looking at the mind-body connection in aging. Maybe this leads to research on different ways neurotransmitters react and the result of aging on the chemicals - and on and on. Maybe this research will inspire others. Research can lead to more research, when allowed.
mcguire 12y ago
How much of the consequences of ageing are physical or biochemical, and how much are psychological?

cLeEOGPw 12y ago

So as we know the older brain gets, the more things it learns. The more things it learns, the less "space" there is left to learn new things. The less "space" there is left, the more difficult it is to absorb new information and learn new concepts. In order to overcome that, brain must unlearn old things. Unlearning is not easy process and requires much more energy than simple learning in young age. So in a way it is mindset, but not in a meaningful way.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
wtetzner 12y ago
I wasn't aware this was the case. Where can I read more about how the brain runs out of "space" as we learn more things?
- cLeEOGPw 12y ago
  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/science/older-brain-is-willing-but-too-full-for-new-memories.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/science/older-brain-is-wil... also http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10584927/Brains-of-elderly-slow-because-they-know-so-much.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10584927/Bra... Nice to see many self righteous people downvoting without even trying to discuss.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

kuni-toko-tachi 12y ago

As corny as "The Secret" is, this is exactly the same principle at work. Establishing the correct mindset is the fertile ground for achieving any purpose.

ad80 12y ago

"We hope you’ve enjoyed your 10 free articles this month."

kator 12y ago
Open in an incognito window.. :)

madaxe_again 12y ago

There's probably something to this. I've been a miserable old man since the age of about 19, and I'm now 31, with arthritis, gall stones and kidney stones. I think it was Seneca who said something along the lines of "When I think as an old man, I have become an old man.". This isn't new knowledge, but something that we seem to have to keep reminding ourselves of. Also, placebos.

otakucode 12y ago
Or, perhaps more apt to your point, nocebos.

thunderbong 12y ago

The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young. - Oscar Wilde

tunap 12y ago

When I was young, 'all' of what I learned was unique. As I aged, the newness waned as I recognized patterns and deemed repackaged ideas as innovative applications. Now well into my 40's, I can still find 'new' when I leave the daily repetitive habit of life and deliberately search outside my comfort zone, but most events now seem stale & tired. The accumulation of knowledge and experience has changed the aspect in which I see and participate within my immediate environment. That is not to say I am or I feel old, it is only that my perspective of life has changed, my aspirations beyond my abilities have been quashed and I am no longer gullible enough to believe the ungrounded, optimistic concepts public education, media marketing and sociopath bosses/users/scammers try to feed me every day. Frankly, despite chronic aches from accumulated injuries and evolving sensations of fatigue, I only feel young when young people remind me I'm not young. YMMV. Edit: Didn't read the mc-article who's sole purpose is to sell advertising...another 'old' thing I've picked up over the years.

api 12y ago

As I age, I've found that I have to expend constant effort to repel the "wisdom" of my cohort as they become cynical, loveless, self-limiting, and as they give up on their dreams. I do think it's a mindset -- a mindset called "aging" which gives us a sense that it is somehow an inevitable byproduct of the biological process that goes by the same name. Barring something amazing out of SENS research, I can't do anything about the biological process. But I can do something about that. I've found little things that help. I occasionally do an experiment where I restrict my music collection to nothing more than five years old. I'll sometimes admit older things only if I was not listening to them when I was a teenager or early-20-something... if they are new to me. It's curiously effective, since central to the ideology of aging is that everything is getting worse than it was "back in my day." If you try this and find your collection sparse, go and find more. Music is a very condensed form of human expression. It carries a lot with it. Other things that work include avoiding excessive and routine alcohol consumption, changing your setting, getting rid of old things, and learning pretty much anything new.

protonfish 12y ago
I like your thoughts, but I wouldn't call the mindset "aging." But what to call it? Maybe "being an asshole."
- api 12y ago
  People seem to call it aging... or rather it seems to happen to people as they "age." But yes, it involves a fair amount of assholery. Another observation: I have children, and I have not given up on my dreams. I find many people who say you can't pursue your dreams with kids. IMHO those people have given up on their dreams for other reasons and are blaming their children for that. It's a shitty thing to do-- your kids want you to have dreams, since it will inspire them.
  - protonfish 12y ago
    Agreed. One of the most important duties of a parent is to serve a positive example by living how you would want your children to live. I know too many whining self-martyrs that believe the quality of parenting is proportional to the amount of misery they are in. I don't believe that is true and these parents are not only failing themselves, but their families as well.

grecy 12y ago

I believe it for sure. When I was 27 I took a white water guide course up here in the Yukon. The instructor was doing backflips out of the raft in class 3 rapids, swimming for fun in water that was a few degrees above freezing, hauling more than his share of the raft, flipping it and righting it again in the middle of the river, etc. etc. The instructor was 68 years old, and he's one of many people up here more than twice my age that can out-do me, and I'm no slouch.

pedalpete 12y ago
This topic has come up a few times in the last few days with friends. I'm 41, but most people think I'm in my early 30s. I'm from Whistler, BC, where most people look and act significantly younger than city-folk of the same age. I'd like to see a study like this one where rather than having people reminisce and pretend time hasn't passed, they spend more time around a younger crowd. I suspect that has an equal effect.
- grecy 12y ago
  Yup, 100%. I just found out my current boss is 47, I would have said he was late 30s.
2muchcoffeeman 12y ago
Which probably has more to do with him keeping active throughout his life, taking care of himself and a dose of good genetics. We already know that exercise and a good diet can slow down the effects of ageing.

jmount 12y ago

Then you can drink all the soda you want? ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8488714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8488714 )

gojomo 12y ago

When online ad networks know your age, they show you 'age-appropriate' advertising (that can be quite depressing). So be sure to tell advertisers and online sites only the age you want subconsciously-reinforced!

jcagalawan 12y ago

That bit about half-speed and double speed clocks is intriguing. For those that don't play Starcraft, all games run at ~1.4 times normal time.[1] A lot of players usually have the in-game clock, which is running fast, showing during gameplay. I wonder what effect that has had.