Quote:
Originally Posted by Erki  What's so wrong with aging anyway? What makes a 80-year old creepy and 20-year old supreme? It's interesting too that while (some) people accuse youth of being bad, they also think of elders as somehow substandard.
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My question is: if we live forever as a 20-year old, where's the progress? Being a 20-year old body all the time seems more like stagnation to me. |
To me it's largely an issue of functionality. With the very young, at least you can look forward to watching them gain new abilities, entering the world at large. With the old, you watch them lose abilities. I'm experiencing the latter with my two grandmothers and my dad. I'd have loved to know my dad when he was in his 20s/30s, able to lift the back of a Volkswagen on his own, but he was already 38 when I was born.
I'd have enjoyed walking with any of them when they could move closer to my pace without concern for falling down. Most of them don't have many new stories to share, just old memories from decades ago that they can only repeat over and over. Their main joy at this point is having people stop by to visit, and I often do so, but not for long. Their lack of movement makes me want to go out and do even more.
None of them enjoy being isolated from the world, no longer being able to do all that they used to do. They'd all jump at the chance (if they could jump) to be able to easily get into/out of a chair, to drive themselves, to walk around a park without pain, and be able to remember where they've parked and what bills they've paid, much less be able to run and climb trees again.
Stagnation need only result if people in healthy, highly functional bodies only had the experiences of average 20 year olds. A healthy body should expand options rather than reduce them. I use my body to do things most people never do, and greatly enjoy it.