Double edged sword, since it’s good that we can actually remember said experiences and maybe pass the wisdom down.
The worst part of getting old is the non-stop physical pain, making you forget what it was like to just have a single, solitary day without it.
The flip side is things you have mastered over the years change, which is also annoying. Like the simple act of ordering at a McDonald’s drive through.
How, even as seasoned veterans of experience, can we preserve a sense of wonder throughout our lives?
. . . truly contemplating the world — truly attending to and feeling wonder for it — can help dissolve the separations we artificially impose upon life.
Your post reminded me this short article, on maintaining wonder and awe through awareness. Its less about the comparison, and more about the appreciation.
Inescapable movie reference: The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Oh there;s lots of new experiences in getting old: going through social security rigmarole, turning grey (or bald), finding yourself unable to do stuff you used to do, arthritis, gout, bone loss, needing a cane, getting up several times a night for the sake of your bladder…
Jesus dude…
Jesus died before 40, he didn’t share the experiences of old age.
But if you live long enough it’s all new again! Some good lines from Andy Huggins, 74-year old standup comic:
“Went to the doctor to see if I had arthritis. Turns out I have early onset rigor mortis.”
“The great thing about dating women my age is I don’t have to meet their parents.”
“Anybody ever drop their phone in the toilet? I did that, so I put it in a bag of rice.
Anybody ever drop a bag of rice in the toilet?”There’s more to see than can ever be seen. More to do than can ever be done.
You can still have lots of first experiences if you seek.
The bigger problem is with increased responsibility, less time and less energy.
My recent ex girlfriend would take certain things we were about to do together (traveling, going to the spa, going to a particular restaurant close to my house, spending the day at a museum, etc.) and would just automatically assume that I had already done that same thing with some unspoken past ex of mine, and get preemptively sad, upset, and self-conscious that she wasn’t “the first”… What? Life isn’t all about firsts, why even get upset about that? So what if I’ve already done something before with someone else, I am still going to enjoy it with YOU right NOW. Maybe a lot of people do compare past experiences to current ones, but I don’t find that very fulfilling, so I just don’t. It’s a lot easier to just live day to day.
Yes! You can do the same thing many times, but that same thing has the potential to be very different each time!
Experience it with different people, with different levels of life-wisdom, with a differently aged body and mind, within differnet cultures, etc etc! So many factors, so many possibilities!
I think your attitude is a good one to have. Comparison is the thief of joy or whatever the saying is.
Nearly everyone has many opportunities they have never taken because they choose not to. How many older people have never
- ridden a motorcycle
- gone fishing
- gone hiking
- knitted
- cooked a complex meal
- gone sailing
- been skydiving
- read a lengthy book series
- played in a local sports league
- coached children
- painted a house
- painted artwork
- sculpted anything
- built a simple things out of wood
- built a complicated thing out of wood
- welded
- taken a canoe/kayak/inner tube down a river
- gone white water rafting
- travel (all kinds!)
All of these things are accessible to the average physically fit person into their 60s. Even the ones that don’t often have special access options for those with disabilities.
But people frequently choose not to try some things because they assume they won’t like them or because of construction concerns, but they also overlook a lot of free or nearly free experiences that they could always try. I haven’t even done all of the things in my example list!
Some things, such as:
knitted been skydiving played in a local sports league
either don’t seem worth the time, effort and other investment vs other new experiences that could be had for less time, effort, expense, risk, etc.
A poster above hit a key point: responsibility. I’ll extend it with: children. At some point, if you have children you care about, helping them get the most out of life, both while you are here and after you are gone, takes precedent. Instead of running a bucket list check-sheet for yourself, the real challenge is ensuring that your children can do the things they want to do in their lives.
I did a new thing just this weekend, wasn’t even on your list.
Every moment in time is unique, every second that passes is a new second with a new world state. Yes there are similarities and patterns, but by shifting your focus you can always find a new way to look at the world.
Instead of trying to recreate Christmas morning 1995 for yourself, try to create Christmas morning 2025 for someone else.
I’ve found the higher income of older age unlocks all kinds of “firsts” that I simply couldn’t afford when I was younger and living with a beater car and a ramen noodle budget.
Further, as I’ve gotten older the value of different “firsts” shifts dramatically. “First roller coaster” was an important first of my childhood while sitting in an office where Abraham Lincoln’s practiced law eating a piece of pie in what is now a restaurant was a much more important “first” that my childhood self wouldn’t have cared about. The pie is fantastic too!
I found that when I lived with a beater car and ramen noodle budget, I had several months of free time per year to do things that I have never been able to repeat since getting “a real income.” Life sucks that way.
The time, yes, but the resources? There are monetary limits to many “firsts”.
Yes, absolutely. However, on $14K/yr income (in 1990), with a beater car, ramen diet and cheap room rent, I was taking summers off and flying to Europe. Sure, I’d stay in youth hostels and travel on the train pass or rented bike, but 3 months in Europe didn’t even cost $4000 out of my $14K income.
Domestic trips in the beater car were of course even cheaper, as long as I mooched lodging off of friends and family.
Blessing and a curse, yeah… fewer new experiences and the world becomes less immediately “Wow!”, but the increase in depth stemming from all of that accumulated context makes old experiences even better in many cases.
I’m thinking here primarily of books, movies, games, music, relationships of all sorts, even of our own persons. One can start to see the multiple layers beneath the surface which were difficult to see due to a lack of life contexts.
About the multiple layers… I did a few months of (near) solo travel, seeing different countries and figuring out things like food, lodging, transit, language when possible/necessary for myself in each new place. It was great, but at the end of it I sat down and watched “a movie from home” and realized that for the past months I had been scrambling, struggling to get through the basics, barely scratching the surface most places because of the sheer effort required just to get through the days and nights. That sappy, unremarkable, movie “from home” just flowed into me effortlessly, with all the layers and subtexts unfolding without any struggle to translate or relate. It was very much a Dorothy “no place like home” moment. And then I flew home and instantly regretted not being able to continue my nomad lifestyle for many more months.
Funny, I always felt that the old “one can never go back home” adage holds true precisely due to the continuous addition of layers of context, in that I’m never the same Me going “home,” which means it can never be “home” for the new Me. I do know that comfort of familiarity, though! For me, it’s getting back to my own bed:))
Either way, your experience sounds wonderful, and I kinda’ envy you, tbh. I’ve always had trouble appreciating new places and contexts, because I see the familiar everywhere I go, in people, in tendencies, in shared cultural elements… Maybe it’s different for everyone, I guess, or a matter of perspective. Very good food for thought!
Well, I very literally lived the “one can never go back home” reality while away at University, my home town doubled in population. So, most of the old places I remember are still there, but there’s all the expanded roadways and bigger crowds everywhere you go. Half of it was built after I left, so the half I remember is now the dingy old stuff.
Of course we all change as life goes on, I find that home is wherever I am, and the longer I’m there the more it feels like “my home.”
My big trip was across Europe (I’m from the US), and there’s a strong tradition in Europe of the “wanderjahr” taking a year off before, after or even during University to travel and see other places, meet other people, etc. I only got to do “wanderjahr light” and I ended up going back the following summer for an encore. I definitely learned more in those 4.5 months than I did any two years in school or University.
Eh, maybe in other countries, my folks would’ve probably killed me if I’d presented an interest to delay University:))
But you’re right, it’s objectively better to take some time and get some perspective, and those 4.5 months really do sound like a good learning experience! Most definitely a lot more immediately useful as pertaining to living in general!
And can relate to your experience of returning home post-University, my home town is now… tumorous, for lack of a better word. But, yes, home is where one is, best way to go about it. Everything changes, the only thing which is somewhat constant is the fact that we’ll have to live with ourselves until we won’t:))
This can be good: I don’t go out of my way to recommend mediocre things just because they’re the first good (or even just acceptable) version of a thing that I’ve encountered.
Perspective is a gift.
Almost all the new experiences suck, too. Like pains you never felt before, in places you’ve never felt pain before.
Pain I can manage. It’s the loss of senses that really sucks for me in old age. I used to have 20/10 eyesight, this crap they implant for cataract repair may be 20/20, but it’s the suckiest 20/20 I have ever experienced. Hearing is getting muffled, smell comes and goes… if I live to be 150, I don’t want to do it “locked in” a sensory deprivation box.
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Yeah I just re-watched Men in Black and it felt like a new movie to me.
10 years ago, if I saw 5 seconds of movie preview, I would know if I had seen it before and generally be able to tell you the whole plot, etc. These days, I can be 30 minutes into a movie I saw 10 years ago before I recognize anything in it, and still be surprised by later parts after recognizing that I have seen it before.
Which is good, because the vast majority of new stuff coming out looks like crap to me.
No wories. Just wait a bit. It won’t be long before all your experiences will feel like new ones again
Jimmy, is that you? Little Jimmy from the house across the creek! Oh, we had such fun together.
