Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 46 posts

Re: I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

#21

Post by gumby »

Wow, I’m 58 and I could write almost the exact opposite for each paragraph (ok pop music from 1999-2004 I agree with).

No “oof” getting up. Knobs are unremarkable. Continuing to work on things that yes, are intended to change the world.

One thing not mentioned: I see someone on the street and they are the spitting image of someone I know well…as they looked 30 years ago.

Re: I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

#22

Post by FerretFred »

Interesting .. I'm over 60 but under 70. Much of that article was relevant to me. However, talking of attitudes, the one that really surprised me was the increased reluctance of dog-rescue charities to let older people adopt rescue mutts. Not paranoia!

Re: I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

#23

Post by sdfhdhjdw3 »

newbye3 wrote: post #4

I am 60 years old and as a person always learning I have accumulated a huge stack of knowledge and I think my mind is in a very good shape so I still can learn new things quickly. Long time ago I found a good balance between life and work, and a good paid job by european standards. The only problem is that sometimes I envy the 200K $ paid jobs, but there are two main walls to pursue that salary: First: I have no work…

I can't believe you have a PhD in math, can do leetcode easily, but AWS is too much for you.

I will personally show you around AWS if you're up for it. Although, I only know EC2, but arguably that's the only thing that matters :D

Re: I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

#24

Post by commandlinefan »

jhallenworld wrote: post #19

This concept that old-people skills are obsolete is a completely modern phenomena, and I'm dubious that it's even true. The pace of change is fast, but only because we are still dealing with the consequences of the scientific and industrial revolutions. I now think of all technologies past ~1800 as "modern". Basically you should learn all of it to some degree. 19th century machinist skills? Still useful and valid. Th…

> Nobody is going to throw away so much working code

But, inexplicably, they're also not going to pay (much) for anybody to maintain it.

Re: I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

#26

Post by MockObject »

> Certain common stereotypes of older people – as creatures bewildered by technology and outfoxed by ordinary packaging – have at their root this resistance to pointless change. I have decades of experience in getting the lids off things, all of it rendered useless by these new lids they have now.

Packaging gets more infernal every year, and I don't understand why. Fine, put the safety seal on the Tylenol, but I'm routinely forced to commit violence with a box cutter to win prizes that aren't ingestible at all.

Re: I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

#27

Post by mathgladiator »

sdfhdhjdw3 wrote: post #23
newbye3 wrote: post #4

I am 60 years old and as a person always learning I have accumulated a huge stack of knowledge and I think my mind is in a very good shape so I still can learn new things quickly. Long time ago I found a good balance between life and work, and a good paid job by european standards. The only problem is that sometimes I envy the 200K $ paid jobs, but there are two main walls to pursue that salary: First: I have no work…

I can't believe you have a PhD in math, can do leetcode easily, but AWS is too much for you. I will personally show you around AWS if you're up for it. Although, I only know EC2, but arguably that's the only thing that matters :D

I worked at AWS and have architected large scale systems, and AWS is too much for me. The problem is that many of their solutions are super focused and they have ecosystem lock-in (i.e. lambda) which allow it all to come together (at a price).

Re: I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

#28

Post by derbOac »

jhallenworld wrote: post #19

This concept that old-people skills are obsolete is a completely modern phenomena, and I'm dubious that it's even true. The pace of change is fast, but only because we are still dealing with the consequences of the scientific and industrial revolutions. I now think of all technologies past ~1800 as "modern". Basically you should learn all of it to some degree. 19th century machinist skills? Still useful and valid. Th…

I'm not sure if this is true or not, but my sense in my own lifetime and in talking to those who went before me that people are increasingly seen in terms of existing certified skills rather than actual skills or abilities. It's as if people are widgets and you need a certified widget to fit in a certain spot in the machine; it's not enough if the widget actually fits but isn't certified as such, and it doesn't matter if it's a free widget producing machine that will produce whatever widgets you want for free from the air around us; it also doesn't matter if these two things are patently true to anyone who will think about it for a second.

Maybe I'm just in a bad spot in my life at the moment but I do think many problems in current society are due to some weird phenomenon where people are seen as unchanging objects, and where abilities can't be inferred even when obvious.

Re: I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

#29

Post by tartoran »

sdfhdhjdw3 wrote: post #23
newbye3 wrote: post #4

I am 60 years old and as a person always learning I have accumulated a huge stack of knowledge and I think my mind is in a very good shape so I still can learn new things quickly. Long time ago I found a good balance between life and work, and a good paid job by european standards. The only problem is that sometimes I envy the 200K $ paid jobs, but there are two main walls to pursue that salary: First: I have no work…

I can't believe you have a PhD in math, can do leetcode easily, but AWS is too much for you. I will personally show you around AWS if you're up for it. Although, I only know EC2, but arguably that's the only thing that matters :D

Why would they need to learn AWS? Their other skills, knowledge and experience is too valuable to do AWS plumbing work. Work can be delegated in areas that one is not skilled in if they bring other valuable skills to the table.

Unless the desired goal is to be an AWS engineer but that’s a different story.

Re: I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

#30

Post by TigeriusKirk »

gumby wrote: post #21

Wow, I’m 58 and I could write almost the exact opposite for each paragraph (ok pop music from 1999-2004 I agree with). No “oof” getting up. Knobs are unremarkable. Continuing to work on things that yes, are intended to change the world. One thing not mentioned: I see someone on the street and they are the spitting image of someone I know well…as they looked 30 years ago.

I'm in your ballpark age-wise.

Physically I'm definitely not as capable as I used to be. Doing construction work like I did when I was 20ish would be very rough. I'm still holding up in terms of slower activity like wilderness backpacking, but strength isn't there, and there are aches and pains.

Mentally I'm probably the best I've been in my adult life, but there was a decade or so when that wasn't true. I started slipping, from laziness really, and it took conscious effort on my part to reverse that. My personal theory, founded on nothing but my own observations and biases, is that a lot of middle-age mental decline comes from losing the desire to make the effort. Older age will likely be different, but that's how it feels now.

Re your last point, I recently saw someone who was the spitting image of me 35 years ago. It was surprisingly unsettling.

Post reply on HN