The gap between how old you are and how old you think you are

It seems to me that in constructing an answer to that question, we are weighing our social and developmental progress against the ages we generally associate to social and developmental milestones.

It's a bit like asking someone how far they have walked today. They aren't going to go back and count the steps. Instead, they will consider what landmarks they passed, and what events they encountered, try to add them all together, and compare that sum against other distances traveled that they do have explicit measurements for.

The length of a journey is most often described, not as an accounting of unit measure, but from weighing the complexity of the story one would tell about it.

This kind of narrative measurement is already present in most of our conversations about age. What age do people learn to read, to swim, or to ride a bicycle? How old is a grandparent? Are you too late in life to start a family? When should a person begin retirement? All of those narratives set a rubric of expectations: a domain and scale for age itself.

When we ask someone how old they "feel", we are intentionally vague. We are asking for the "age" that isn't defined by time. So a person constructs a new definition or of the narratives that are familiar to them, and tells us where they see themselves in that collection of narratives.

I've felt 45 since I was 15. I'm 39. No kids, still living the single college (but without college) life. A little chronic physical illness and a lot of mental illness.

It's nice to finally say "Oh I don't know if I have it in me to do that today." and have people actually accept your answer. I don't miss youth because I never experienced it. Would have killed myself long ago but I never worked up the willpower to even achieve that (also no guns or high cliffs in my country - when you start researching it you find it's surprisingly hard to reliably end a life without suffering). I'm finally finding life slightly enjoyable for once being an old fart.

I tutor a handful of teenage Gen Z kids and it's unnerving how much I can relate to them. Neither of us expect to have much of a future - for me it was my medical issues and suicidal thoughts, but for them it's the outside world they're going into. Two of my brightest students have said they don't expect to make it to 40 and if they do life will be much much harder. They're healthy, happy, mentally well - but with both political and literal climate going the way they are they can't see humanity realistically making it that far without some kind of mass war, famine, genocide, not to even mention untold horrors AI will usher in.

I'm 35. Really the only time I feel older than 20 is when I'm hungover. Never really got hangovers until I was in my late 20s

Tendons.

Once beautiful, stretchy creatures that probably now resemble a curmudgeon being asked to be nice to a neighbor.

Been playing soccer with my soccer mad 8 yr old. I too was that guy. Brings me back and I am so much better at technique now but boy oh boy does my hip and lower back hurt the next day!!!

Only upon reading your comment a second time did I realize you said “no kids”. What you wrote after sounds exactly what life can feel like for an ambitious hacker (side projects!) confronted with the massive quantity of household work that young children bring about. Passenger is a word I use a lot - my mind hasn’t changed from before kids, but at times it feels like I’m just on the sidelines watching everyone else do stuff, while I change diapers and wash dishes.

I’m not anyone to be giving out psychological advice - but given my high “overhead of life” I’ve found it a convenient time to focus on physical health. I just need 30 minutes a day for exercise, and then it’s just a matter of eating healthy. Kids may take my time but they can’t force junk food down my throat! My time will free up down the road - and I think your “muse” will also return with time. Which is why I figure now is a great time to instead focus on health (low opportunity cost wrt side projects). You may as well start with that, and if we believe a lot of what’s written these days, it’s entirely possible that improved diet and exercise might clear and focus your mind too (that would be house money if so). But at least when your drive returns, hopefully the new healthy habits you’ve gained will stick.

Last thought - if you can’t think of anything else interesting to work on, I’d recommend blogging about a subject matter you find interesting. Just my 2 cents.