Recently, my sister was making a comment on my blog.
“I’m thirty years old. . .” she wrote.
“Wow,” I thought, “she is really psychologically healthy and happy with her life.”
You see, the truth is that my sister isn’t 30. She is twenty-nine and will only turn thirty in March. I knew a man who seriously contemplated suicide in the week before he turned thirty. “I realized that I was getting too old for anything good to happen to me,” he said. I’ve heard this many times from people who were about to turn 30, 35, 40, etc., which is why I’m glad that for my sister, turning 30 is nothing but an anticipated cause for celebration.
I never understood why people were secretive about their age and pretended to be younger than they are. It is such a denial of yourself, of your experiences, of entire years of your life that I simply don’t get it.
Of course, I know that I will be immediately told in response to these observations that “society values youth.” But who is this mysterious “society”? Doesn’t it consist of all of us? And don’t we contribute to the idea that only youth is good and valuable every time we conceal our age?
Do you conceal your age?
Clarissa's Blog 
I’ve never bought into the age concealing mythology. I’ve been rounding up for years. The only sadness I feel is the acute realization that there are professional athletes younger than me retiring now. If only I had worked harder as a 16 yr old. . .
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I never had an ounce of chance as an athlete, so it doesn’t bug me. 🙂
But I wish I became a blogger a lot earlier.
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Nope. I am rather happy to have been around for more than seventy years.
A law school classmate who had been graduated from Harvard at the top of his class, was consistently first in our class in law school, was a good athlete, was very popular and served as editor in chief of our law review had not attained the ripe old age of twenty-one and was therefore too young to take the bar examination upon graduation. He instead accepted a Rhodes Scholarship. He had majored in mathematics in college but decided to study something else in England because, he said, all of the important discoveries in mathematics had been made by “young people.” Dear me.
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You are over seventy?? I wish my students had half as much intellectual vigor and passion in their beliefs as you do.
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When I turned 7 I cried because I would never be 6 again. For a long time afterward, I felt a little bit sad on each birthday. It was only after I turned 19 or so that I began to stop worrying.
People can make big changes in their life, One of my favorite bloggers got his PHD when he was 34 and already had children. Another person I knew got a degree in nursing at the age of 51.
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/11/secondchance.html
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My first thesis adviser got his PhD when he was 40 and then rose to great heights in our profession. So I agree with you.
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I don’t conceal my age (I am 38). I am quite proud of what I have done so – I have the job I always wanted (tenured prof at a major research univ) and a beautiful, healthy family (3 kids). I have lots to be thankful for.
Re all important discoveries in mathematics are done by young people — I have heard that one before… That kid’s reaction is quite immature. You just do what you enjoy to the best of your abilities; maybe you achieve greatness, maybe you don’t. Greatness is kind of a byproduct of immersing one’s self in something. Just being able to do what you love, and make a living out of it, is an extreme privilege…
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I agree with everything you say here. If a person is content with their life, they will not have any reason to dislike their age.
As for the “correct” age to do mathematics, I have met people who said they always dreamt of being computer programmers but “I’m 25 already and that’s too old for a programmer to begin.” 😦
I also heard that you can’t learn to speak a foreign language really well if you don’t start learning it in childhood. Of course, I’m living proof that it’s a load of baloney. 🙂
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My friends want to get me fried and smashed for my 30th birthday. With any luck I’ll also be just about to start a doctoral program. I can’t wait.
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Start a doctoral program? I thought you were about to graduate. Wow, you are so smart already, I can’t imagine where you’ll get when you finish the PhD. Seriously, I’m stunned you are so young and so erudite already.
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Aw thanks for the kind words. I’m finishing up my masters this year. Two more weeks and two more extensive revisions of research projects to go! 🙂
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OK, now I’m starting to develop an inferiority complex. 🙂
Could you share what the masters thesis is about?
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“OK, now I’m starting to develop an inferiority complex.”
That’s kind of how I feel whenever you talk about what you’re doing in academia, Mrs. Yale Graduate Knower Of A Thousand Languages.
“Could you share what the masters thesis is about?”
My school has two capstone options for the masters program (no doctoral program here): a thesis, or a comprehensive final exam that covers all course materials. I was going to do a thesis, but my profs recommended that I save the intensive, multi-year research for a doctoral dissertation and spend my energies for now gaining experience in research, pedagogy, and theory by taking more classes, as well as working on a writing sample for my applications to doctoral programs. I took the exam last weekend and my committee chair gave me some rave reviews. 🙂
My research projects this semester are on image and narrative in several Hollywood novels, and rhetoric and aesthetics in Paradise Lost. My application writing sample is on power, identity, and representation in a couple of Shakespeare’s plays. In my doctoral studies I plan (for now) on focusing on poetics of the English Renaissance, mainly those of Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton, as they relate to genre traditions and sociopolitical change.
I am a huge fucking nerd.
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“That’s kind of how I feel whenever you talk about what you’re doing in academia, Mrs. Yale Graduate Knower Of A Thousand Languages.”
– 🙂 🙂 May I also bring to everybody’s attention this heart-warming photo of my publications: https://clarissasblog.com/2010/07/04/derrida-searle-and-me/ I’m just trying to make myself feel better now. 🙂
“I took the exam last weekend and my committee chair gave me some rave reviews”
-Like anybody doubted you would do great! 🙂
“In my doctoral studies I plan (for now) on focusing on poetics of the English Renaissance, mainly those of Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton, as they relate to genre traditions and sociopolitical change.”
-Sounds fascinating. Good luck with the applications. I know it’s a very time-consuming process.
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What about those who pay money for products whose soul purpose is to
take years off your appearance?” Or those getting cosmetic surgeries…aren’t those people society, too? I personally think any emphasis on appearance after one is married is just a distraction.
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Herman Cain, on the David Letterman show on November 20th, was asked about a campaign spot in which his campaign manager, Mark Block, puffed on a cigarette. He said, “We have a saying in the campaign: let Herman be Herman, let Mark be Mark. Let’s let people be people. He smokes; so he was taking a smoke. . . .” I rather like that idea. If one wants to look younger, older, more handsome or prettier (and can actually manage it and not thereby just look more silly) or even to puff on a cigarette — or a pipe as I do continuously except while sleeping — that’s just fine. There are far too many nannies telling us what to do and what not to do.
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Herman Cain, during the Republican Presidential candidate debate last month, said he was gonna replace the tax code with oranges.
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*Any* emphasis on appearance? Imho, paying *some* attention to one’s looks after finding a partner is necessary. I don’t mean surgeries. I mean may be the same hair creams to strengthen and make hair shinier one used before, watching one’s weight (not extreme, not working crash diets, but healthy food and some exercise), etc. Marriage is a sexual relationship too and trying to look attractive to one’s sexual partner should be a no-brainer. Especially in a marriage, where, unlike in one-night stand, you want the other side to be attracted tomorrow too.
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I responded here: https://clarissasblog.com/2011/11/22/looking-good-for-your-partner/
This is the kind of comment that deserves a separate post. 🙂
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I recently read statistics on how people who have cosmetic surgeries commit suicide more often than those who don’t. Tells you a lot about their reasons for doing those surgeries.
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I don’t conceal my age, but I don’t go out of the way to say I’m either older or younger than I am (online).
In real life, I’ve just found that lots of things are cheaper if people still think you’re a minor. The only reason I’ve never professed to being older is because I don’t drink. Most of the time I fight to get people to recognize that I’m over eighteen, though. I think the best part is being carded while buying a lottery ticket, of all things.
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In re #17, “Herman Cain, during the Republican Presidential candidate debate last month, said he was gonna replace the tax code with oranges.” That would be an improvement. Oranges are sweet, juicy and have lots of healthy Vitamin C; freshly squeezed orange juice is the nectar of the gods. That cannot be said of the tax code, much less of the IRS regulations that require the slaughter of many thousands of innocent trees just to print. The resultant filings with the IRS require horrific aborcide (is that a word? If not, I just created one).
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I took my life off the beaten tracks around the age of 27. Conformity to the status quo — what Nietzsche calls “the ascetic ideal” — wasn’t working out for me.
Until that age, every time I turned a year old, but particularly at Christmas time, I would do an appraisal of the past and find myself extremely miserable.
After I went off the beaten track, every year I have consolidated my strength and belief in myself. Getting older seems like a confirmation of how I have expressed my instincts and measure of self-justification.
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I’m actually always very pleased when I’m mistaken for being a few years older than my actual age, it makes me feel good about my speaking abilities. 🙂
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I don’t really see how it is anybody’s business really and why some people are so intrusive. Because I’m reluctant to answer people’s instrusive, nosy questions they often interpret that as me concealing, etc. It is more about maintaining personal power and privacy to me.
I feel posing that question is not always with the best intent.Some people do so out of needing to one up–it’s a weird competitive type of thing. In a perfect world people would not hide their motives for being so intrusive into other people’s lives or spending so much time comparing themselves to others in all ways. They would look at people as human beings rather than focusing so much on their age and then trying to peg them for whatever–interests, etc., or even sales pitches.
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Do you feel the same way when people ask you what city you were born in? Where you work? What your name is? What’s more intrusive about the age question?
“I feel posing that question is not always with the best intent.Some people do so out of needing to one up–it’s a weird competitive type of thing. In a perfect world people would not hide their motives for being so intrusive into other people’s lives or spending so much time comparing themselves to others in all ways. They would look at people as human beings rather than focusing so much on their age and then trying to peg them for whatever–interests, etc., or even sales pitches.”
-These are simply projections. Nobody in real life cares about you that much. People only ask about age like they mention the weather, for lack of anything more profound to discuss.
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Also, people who try to get information in order to build a picture based on typical demographics deserve whatever interpretations they make out of the information.
For instance, I am a female, from Rhodesia, 43 years old, married with no children and teaching ESL.
From this kind of demographic information, you might imagine that I am a right-wing conservative, who has modest aspirations and has somehow failed to produce children.
The opposite is true. I’ve fought to stop or undo the internalization of much of my conservative heritage concerning gender. I am so free that there is actually no correlation between the features of my heritage and my capacity to make choices. I’ve maximized my freedom to an incredible degree and am happy about that.
So, I can freely volunteer any information I like and most of the time the people who I was born to dislike will draw the wrong conclusions about it, whereas the ones who could be interesting will probe deeper.
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“So, I can freely volunteer any information I like and most of the time the people who I was born to dislike will draw the wrong conclusions about it, whereas the ones who could be interesting will probe deeper.”
The point is you can freely volunteer any information that you like. It is your choice. Just because someone asks a question doesn’t mean it deserves an answer. Volunteered information is very different from people being intrusive. Just a thought…It may not be a very popular one on this forum however it is valid for many given individual experiences.
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“The point is you can freely volunteer any information that you like. It is your choice. Just because someone asks a question doesn’t mean it deserves an answer. Volunteered information is very different from people being intrusive. Just a thought…It may not be a very popular one on this forum however it is valid for many given individual experiences.”
-I don’t think anybody will disagree with this.
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It’s for work that it’s good to de-emphasize age, though. If I were to do a career change of the type that puts you into entry or even mid level positions I would seriously think about Restylane.
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Of all the skin care treatments I’ve ever tried, Bio Oil has been the most effective. It also happens to be relatively cheap.
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You have to be careful about what you mention on my blog because I just went and bought this product. 🙂 I love skin care products.
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Oh, good!
It’s really versatile and kind of a hardy product, which suits me well enough. Also, it makes my muscles shine.
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I don’t have any muscles but I have these two nasty sunspots on my face and the product users says it will help make them fade.
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I am also buying it.
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It is such a denial of yourself, of your experiences, of entire years of your life that I simply don’t get it.
The Ideal
This is where I came from.
I passed this way.
This should not be shameful
Or hard to say.
A self is a self.
It is not a screen.
A person should respect
What he has been.
This is my past
Which I shall not discard.
This is the ideal.
This is hard.
— James Fenton
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I personally think I’m going to go my grandmother’s route and claim to be 28 in two years. I figure I can get away with it until I’m 40 😀
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As I always say to my mother, “Please remember that between your date of birth and mine, there should be at least 9 months.” 🙂
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There was another funny story where a newspaper in our Russian-speaking community published an article on me with my DOB.
Then, people who knew my mother (and that would be half of Montreal) started coming up to her and saying, “Erm, if your daughter was born in 1976, then it means that Michael (my father) started a relationship with you when you were 14. I always thought he was such a respectable, normal person. But this is really disgusting!”
My father was really appalled that people had started seeing him as some sort of a pedophile. 🙂
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I am 23 now and I can hardly imagine ever turning 30, lest 50 or 70.
o.O
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You’ll get over that when you’re older. You’ll even look forward to it. 🙂
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Yeah, I would say that too, if I were as old as you are 😀
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-These are simply projections. Nobody in real life cares about you that much. People only ask about age like they mention the weather, for lack of anything more profound to discuss.
If nobody in real llife cares about you that much then why would they bother to ask the question. And if they don’t care, why should I respond?
I actually find discussions about weather more interesting and profound. I don’t think I need to elaborate about the disconnect I feel towards Incessant and mindless chatter.
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So how do you respond? If you say, “None of your business”, then I admire you. 🙂
But if you lie and say a lower number in response, then all this talk about not caring is not exactly truthful, eh?
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I usually change the topic and talk about the weather! ahahaha
How many people do you know that actually tell the truth anyway? Truth can be distorted in all kinds of ways.
Actually, I lie up and provide a ridiculous number. It assures me of a response that is either one of surprise, or one of flattery–you look good for your age. It’s the balm for insecurity and someone possessed of a skeptical nature and sometimes I just feel like acting like a damnned snot.
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“sometimes I just feel like acting like a damnned snot”
-OMG! Are you me? 🙂 Have I been talking to myself here? 🙂
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