2023-04-28 13:30:00
SSince spending my lunch breaks on campus, I sometimes feel like a student again. Sitting down on one of the sunbeds just a few steps from my apartment, surrounded by young women in cut-off bell bottoms and boys with mustaches, takes me right back to the days of handsets and ECTS points. Sometimes I’m even asked for my student ID in the copy shop.
That I’m not flattered would be a lie. I’ve been prepared long enough by the media and my mother for the day when I’d be happy to see such a downward valuation. Throughout his youth, it was always about accelerating the passage of time and bringing his physical age into line with his perceived age.
Finally fourteen (old enough for Dr. Sommer), finally sixteen (for beer and Bacardi Breezer), and by eighteen I would be world dominator. In the twenties it didn’t matter how old you were, although I found twenty-seven, as the year Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse etc. died, glamorous in a heroin-chic-twisted way.
When I was in my early thirties, I was happy for the first time when someone thought I was in my late twenties. Is it all downhill from now on?
Body fat, BMI and protein percentage
“You are as young as you feel”, what a worn and yet still valid sentence. Studies suggest that subjective age has a tremendous impact on physical health. People who feel younger are not only more open to new experiences, but also better protected against depression and even premature death.
Also interesting is the experimental setup that shows that believing in a younger biological age makes you more productive. After one group was told they performed better than their age in a hand exercise, they actually performed better than the corresponding control group. This reminds me of my futuristic digital scales, which, in addition to body fat, BMI and protein percentage, also indicate biological age. Admittedly, twenty-nine feels pretty awesome.
If the body fat scale doesn’t take over: What can you do to correct your perceived age downwards? The Silver Surfers could be a role model, that’s the modern term for the former sprightly seniorswhose basic physical condition allows a life almost without restrictions, golfing in the Algarve, Bellini on the Düsseldorfer Kö, at least as long as the so-called small change is available.
Turn up after menopause
Some of these, also known as Golden Agers, literally surf on longboards through Munich’s Glockenbachviertel. Not everyone has gray hair, by the way, unlike those Millennials or Gen Z who choose to dye it gray. The US author Tavi Gevinson, for example, first became famous with this granny look (today she is blonde and looks like the young Scarlett Johansson).
The Coastal Grandmother Look recently appeared on TikTok, the longing of young women for that self-sufficient existence in cardigan that overtakes you shortly after menopause, when men finally only play a supporting role at most and women can instead devote themselves to the complete works of Emily Dickinson. The matching outfit consists of white linen trousers, a coarse knit sweater and a raffia bag. Note: not everyone is longing for eternal youth.
It does seem to be healthy though. What also keeps you young is the right company. I know a wonderful older lady who swears by the anti-aging effects of making friends with people much younger than her, and I am one of them. Love relationships are probably even more effective. The Danish film “Königin”, for example, revolves around a fifty-something protagonist who lets her sixteen-year-old stepson pleasure her orally in the washing machine and then turns it up to adult aperitifs.
It is obvious why many, especially men, in the so-called midlife crisis comfort themselves with women who could be their daughters: to run away from the fear of their own mortality or, if the budget allows, drive away in a sports car.
Trust in the biological clock
That’s not enough for some. In 2018, the Dutch motivational speaker Emile Ratelband went to court with the demand to be allowed to adjust the year of birth stated in the passport to his attitude to life because it would increase his chances of success on Tinder. He, then 69 years old, now feels like 49, and if gender is only a social construction, why not age? The lawsuit was not upheld.
Surprisingly, research suggests that advancing age is by no means associated with decreasing happiness, on the contrary. Happiness researcher Tobias Esch speaks of the “satisfaction paradox”: Despite physical complaints, older people are generally happier and more content than middle-aged adults. “Amazingly, the most important driver for this is aging itself.”
As a result, trusting your biological clock, you could save yourself all the longboard surfing and instead chug peacefully with the golf caddy towards the end of life dusk. And honestly, who wants to be fifteen again? Not me, not even twenty-five.
I think about that often when Mimikry-Twenty sitting on campus: how much my time at university was shaped by money problems, worries about the future, non-compliance with cleaning plans in the shared apartment and instant coffee from the discount store. And how much better off I am now as a self-managed wage earner with a really good oat cappuccino in hand.
#Psychology #reduce #perceived #age