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Imagine yourself as an old person (60+ years old)
What are your thoughts about getting old?
Do you dread it? Do you fear the prospects of your body breaking down, retirement and idleness, fading into irrelevance in the eyes of the young, or the death of your parents, siblings, and friends?
If you imagine yourself as an old person, do you see yourself as tired, boring, depressed, or sick? Nostalgic about better years that have passed you by? What do you think you will be like as an oldster?
The popular wisdom runs that young people who came of age in the '60s and beyond have a dread of old age, as famously expressed by the Rolling Stones in "Mother's Little Helper": "what a drag it is getting old." Supposedly this has some connection to the increasing dominance of youth culture in Western societies, with its emphasis on hedonism, attractiveness, open and unattached sexual expression, spontaneity, and carefree ecstatic partying, all things that have traditionally been considered improper or ridiculous in an old person. The Baby Boomers, this story goes, are still wistful about their youth, and this is why we see an ever-increasing emphasis on products and lifestyles -- exercise, Viagra, anti-aging creams, cosmetic surgeries -- designed to encourage youthful appearance and vigor. Having swallowed whole the ideals of hedonistic culture in their younger days, today's graying hippies have nothing solid to sustain them in their old age, so they turn to palliatives like therapy and consumer products that offer them a youth and energy that in reality is always receding from them.
Thoughts?
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