• palordrolap@fedia.io
    37·
    1 day ago

    So there’s this commonly stated thing about ageing which is that we perceive each day of our lives not as a day, but as being the size of the fraction of our lives a day represents. Or more simply, a day is as long for a 5-year-old as two days are for a 10-year-old and so on.

    With that in mind, and knowledge of a little mathematics, our lives viewed this way aren’t linear, but logarithmic, and it means that we reach middle age not at 40-something but at something on the order of the square root of our life expectancy.

    Looked at this way, we’ve lived far more than half our lives by the time we’re ten, even if we expect to live to be a hundred.

    No wonder so many of us feel like children. Or act like them.

    • zarkanian
      21·
      1 day ago

      The way you perceive time is based on your state of mind, not your age. My perception of time hasn’t gotten faster as I age. It’s gotten faster and then slower depending upon my lifestyle and my mindset.

      • suaroof@lemmy.world
        9·
        1 day ago

        I think it’s less about perception of time as you’re experiencing it right now.

        Like, a month to me right now feels much MUCH shorter than a month when I was a kid. Much more when we talk about years. But an hour is still going to be as long or as short as it wouldve been whether or not I’m doing something.

        • zarkanian
          24·
          20 hours ago

          That’s what I’m telling you. A month feels like a month, a year feels like a year. When people say “OMG! I can’t believe that 2005 was 20 years ago!” or something like that, I think “Yes, that feels about right.”

          • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.worldEnglish
            32·
            19 hours ago

            I never understand those kinds of posts. It makes me concerned that so many people have such a loose grasp of the passage of time.

            It is because their lives are too boring and uneventful? Is it because their life is very hectic with constant responsibility?

            I see comments about x being y years ago “do you feel old now”, and all I can think is that even covid feels like a lifetime ago and that was only a few years ago.

            • Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de
              4·
              19 hours ago

              There are studies that show that our brains like to automate routines and habits. For example, when I had a job that was 1 hour away from where I lived, at first that hour of driving felt like an eternity, but after a year of making that drive I would start to day dream and then suddenly I would be there without much memory of driving.

    • catbum@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      1 day ago

      The other day, I cracked open a tote of some high school papers and keepsakes that I haven’t laid eyes on in 15 years. Found a notebook inside where I wrote these yearly journal entries of big takeaways and thoughts I had each NYE starting as a freshman.

      What I wrote as a freshman at 14, right down to my exact handwriting, I could have written yesterday. What really hit me was how well I had summarized my entire psyche in wide-ass crayola marker. Like shit, I couldn’t have said it more succinctly myself, self.

      Are we indeed the same people we were in those “Stand by Me” years and the added baggage of aging and externally changing has only served to complicate us, to easily confuse ourselves with what we do? Is continually adding to the sum total of our lived experiences even helpful if some of us have already lost ourselves to a heap of internalized hardship?

      But who am I now if I am not also what I have lived?

      …

      Yeah im all good here just another civilian casualty of shock and awe ruminating the night away 👈😎👉

      • Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de
        4·
        19 hours ago

        Do you ever feel like aging is socially isolating? When I was 18 I could chat with literally anyone and it was almost always well received. But the older I get, the more socially isolated I am starting to feel. It feels like younger people want nothing to do with people older than them, even at places like climbing gyms… Which I understand, but it still makes me a little sad. I am not expecting to be good friends with any of them, but being able to chat and be friendly with other adults makes life less depressing.

        I think the lack of shared culture is also making life far more socially isolating. When I meet people my own age at a social event, it is becoming harder and harder to chat with them. I don’t watch sports, I don’t keep up with the latest movies, and I hate consumerism. My dream is to live in a car free community with a social democracy. I love learning, urbanism and socialism. But there is scarcely anyone my age in any of the local socialist organizations…

  • 2ugly2live@lemmy.world
    81·
    2 days ago

    I’m in my 30’s and I still don’t feel like an adult. I always feel like I’m mimicking what someone my age should be, and then when I go home, it’s like, “finally, away from all those scary adults.”

  • RebekahWSD@lemmy.world
    37·
    2 days ago

    I always felt I am mentally 16. Can a 16 year old do adult stuff? Yeah, could probably trust them with instructions and stuff. Should you? Fuck no, stop asking them to be an adult! I don’t think I’ll ever feel adulty.

  • FreshLight
    6·
    1 day ago

    For me it’s self-respect. If you learn to treat yourself with enough respect you are already filling out a huge portion of the adult form.

    Maybe it’s full, round and healthy growth in general that helps…

    • hsdkfr734r@feddit.nl
      12·
      2 days ago

      At certain a age you have to get creative to protect the sensitive skin on your head from the 🌞.

    • other_cat@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      You know, I was actually going to ask why short hair on elderly women was so common. I had just assumed it was a remnant of their preferences from when they were younger, but I can definitely see trying to maximize thinned out hair!