THE CONFUSING CONFUSIONS ABOUT GETTING OLD
There’s no doubt a simple (and worrying) explanation for how websites know I’m aging. What bemuses me is why the advertisements they target me with appear to have been devised by what can only be people with a life experience that, unlike me, doesn’t precede the digital age.
If you think that’s an exaggeration, check an advert titled “55 Special Gadgets for Those Over 55”, featuring a picture of a couple who looked like they got lost on the way to an early Joni Mitchell concert as a “grab-the- old-folks’ attention” tactic.
Item Number one is a stick with which “In a click (or a tap), you can back up every single photo and video on your computer or smartphone”…up to 60,000 of them… “without being tech-savy”
No sale. Being well over 55, my photo memories are from an age before “tech-savy” was even a word (despite which I know is spelled “savvy”). They’re prints and slides, also known as transparencies. Does anyone other than my contemporaries know what those are? They were made using cameras, many of which I still own and being “tech-savy” isn’t a major requirement.
An offer for some kind of miracle pillow case asks if I’ve ever wondered why I “look so rough first thing in the morning?”
Maybe because at my age Nature gets me up at least once a night to stagger to the bathroom? Also, nobody shaves me or combs my hair while I’m asleep. The advert would be more appealing if it told me why that happens to people in movies and TV series who get dressed to go to sleep after they’ve had sex.
I also suspect a pillow that subverts falling asleep before sex is in the equation might have a better chance in the target market.
UNSWEET WAYS TO DREAM
Nor do I need something that “essentially combines yoga, meditation, and behavioral therapy” to help me get to sleep.
A more useful gadget would be one that keeps me from falling asleep in front of the TV before a programme I’m actually interested in is over.
As for the miracle anti-snoring devices, ask my other half if any of them work.
The 55 gadgets list is actually 87, which I conclude means the Madison Ave munchkins thought a headline with a number closer to their intended audience’s age would scare us off.
They also missed the less than subliminal message in the sales pitch: “…the last nail clipper you’ll need?”…all those other devices, plans, foods and regimens to keep me living longer aren’t going to work as advertised.
I wonder if the “internet celebrity and centimillionaire tech founder turned longevity guru Bryan Johnson”, who spends $2‑million a year measuring every aspect of his body, eats the same three vegan meals every morning and gulps 111 pills a day has one?
My preferred regimen of regular exercise, Mediterranean diet, decent wine and a pre-prandial single malt means I won’t get to wear the “Don’t Die” tee shirt his followers favour.
It might not help me live as long as the “aging is a treatable disease” industry claims it can do, either. But it’ll feel like I did.
Nor will I be tempted to lavish my pension on alleged anti and wrinkle-removing lotions, potions and creams.
Excuse me, I earned every damned one of my wrinkles — and my grey hair — through laughing, crying, squinting and frowning in puzzlement and wonder, quaking in fear and on and on…in short…by life. I neither need nor want to remove its mileposts, thanks all the same.
LIVING BY THE NUMBERS
I used to scoff at the saying “age is just a number”, but since my number passed the Biblically-allotted three score and ten, it’s beginning to make a kind of sense.
Aging is the number of places I ache when I get out of bed. So far, they’re not always the same, so the number isn’t growing at an alarming rate, which I’ll accept as a gift.
Diminishing numbers count too. The kilos and number of reps in my weight-lifting regimen have been declining. The number of seconds I can balance on one leg varies, so I’ve decided not to use the count as part of the age calculation.
The number I like best was a comment on this website by a friend and colleague considerably older than me, the great Jon Randal, which deemed me “henceforth a member in good standing” of the “ Ancient and Honorable Order of Curmudgens”.
Happily, no fad diets, potions, lotions or denial of life’s minor pleasures are required.
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14 thoughts on “THE CONFUSING CONFUSIONS ABOUT GETTING OLD”
I think it was Mark Twain who at turning 80 and having been told to quit smoking and drinking said, ” then I’d be a sinking ship with no cargo to throw overboard.”
Not that this has a lot to do with your aging revelations but at nearly 75, when a thought occurs to me I tend to express it. Impending filter problems I suspect.
By the way, you might reconsider throwing out your anti wrinkle cream…just saying”.
Mark Twain had another good one on dying…“When I consider all the disagreeable people who are said to have ‘gone to a better place’, I’m inclined to change my ways”
I agree with you 100%. I am 80 and counting but I do not feel 80. You’re as old as you feel. My children keep me busy. One daughter calls me gruber translated grandpa Uber . I am the first one she calls to pickup her kids to transport them to wherever they need to go. It keeps me busy. You can thank God for every day he gives you. It is always great to be standing upright every morning.
I don’t diet and I agree with you about wrinkles we have earned them along with the gray hair. My exercise consists of mowing my grass it is like walking 6 miles. I enjoy reading what you write.
Have to admit I do feel old from time to time…but hey…still kickin’
I like the Gruber designation…in excellent reason on its own to keep,going and be happy
who is most vulnerable to these offers?…
an aging population…
just look at the pitchmen for these products…
the aged and popular stars of our youth…
it’s not like these folks have the wisdom of the
ages…it’s more they have the attention of the
aging…
Thank someone for body part replacement, as I would be struggling to walk, yes both knees, following in my fathers foot steps 🚶♂️
I guess since we’re the oldest and richest dying generation to ever pass into oblivion it’s not surprising that everyone out there wants to get their hands on our well earned retirement money. It would be unamerican not to. But it doesn’t bother me so much because I always look at the offers of pills, creams, medical procedures etc. to help us go gently as if they are for somebody else not for me. I guess I belong to the Dylan Thomas school of thought as I leave this earth. I don’t know exactly what Thomas had in mind when he wrote that we should rage, rage against the dying of the light but I’m sure it wasn’t that we should take more meds to dull our senses or creams to smooth our skin. We have to discover our own way to rage and not go gentle into that good night.
I think “rage rage” means “keep paddlng”.
Haha! Didn’t want to go there. Too much information. But I am raging on our 5 and 10 mile handicap club races.
Great stuff. After all we’re bloody lucky to be getting old x
Especially when it means we’re getting better eh?
Great stuff. After all we’re bloody lucky to be getting old x
Being a female, I am guilty of purchasing anti-aging skin creams. I just have to give mother nature some help. Just turned 74 this past Thursday. Anyway, getting older is a blessing. As an Iraqi Freedom veteran, and still working in education, I have to celebrate surviving both.