IN JULY 1842, ADAMS TURNED SEVENTY-FIVE. ALREADY HE HAD outlived the biblical span of threescore and ten, which Adams viewed as the age beyond which no one could reasonably expect to live. Life, he understood, was a “pilgrimage” from which he could at any moment be recalled. He had been admonishing himself for years, often on the occasion of his birthday, to prepare his soul for death. Two years earlier, on his seventy-third birthday, he had written in his diary, “I am deeply sensible of the duty of beginning in earnest to wean myself from the interests and afflictions of this world, and of preparing myself for the departure to that which is to come.” Then, almost in the next sentence, Adams made a stark admission to himself: “The truth is, I adhere to the world and all its vanities, from an impulse not altogether voluntary, and cannot, by any exercise of my will, realize that I can have but very few days left to live.”
SEVENTY-FIVE... the age beyond which no one could reasonably expect to live...
పోస్ట్లు
70 కామెంట్లు:
Long may you run.
Does anyone else find it a little grandiose to say three score and 10 instead of 70? I'm running out time here, and the extra words are gonna cost me something at the end.
I'd wish you an early Happy Birthday, but suspect I'd be admonished for missing the point of the post.
No one can do so by their own will.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
If a healthy woman lives to 75 her conditional life expectancy is 13 years or 88 yo according to the tables. So don’t put the rocking chair on the porch and worry about your soul yet. According to expectation.
I am finding my appreciation for life’s moments has shifted…from milestones and achieving goals, the hunt for opportunity, to presence and simple joys, a moment in nature, a text from a long lost childhood friend that perhaps is also shifting priorities. I never imagined I’d abandon the vanities though, so skipping Adams ‘sensible’ duty altogether…
Yah skip Adams data on life expectations. People died from stuff like ‘consumption’ back then, wtf did they know…
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
I don't need to prepare my soul. It'll be just fine. It's everything else that's going to go to hell.
Most people today still die from "consumption".
His dad lived to 91. First President to live that long. Didn’t happen again until Herbert Hoover turned 90 after JFK was assasinated
JQA lived to be 80.
Why be reasonable?
Prof, you easily have 20 more years of blogging ahead! By that time it will probably be some kind of niche ancient art, as most people will be communicating with holograms, some actual humans, some virtual. Blogging will be like cursive writing is now. CC, JSM
My wife and I keep noticing how what we think of as "old" keeps getting later and later. So for my 75th birthday in September, we went to Hawaii "while we're still young".
I feel for you Althouse.
You are two years older than me, but I realize that every 5 year marker is a time to reflect on our mortality, aches and pains.
Last year, I lost my Mother (age 90) and best friend from HS on the same weekend. Events like that tend to focus the mind.
The best remedy is to live life to its fullest.
I take his “reasonably expect to live” as referring to beliefs as of a younger age. So when he was, say, 20 he couldn’t reasonably expect to live past 75, which was probably accurate, leaving aside his genetics. But then he went melodramatic with the “I can have but very few days left to live.” Presumably he was using “days” poetically.
If a US woman lives to 75 your odds of living to 100 are 3%! Go for it! Be a winner!
I am a good statistician, but a very bad marketer.
Josephbleau is correct. While life expectancy at birth for a female is 80.18 years, the life expectancy for the average 75 year old female is 87.68 (half die before that age and half after.) The reason for the actuarial change is when one reaches 75 one has already avoided all the accidents, diseases and other perils that could have happened before 75, but didn't. See (https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html) for the actuarial tables social security uses for any age from birth to 119 years for both women and men. Note from the tables that 85.92 years is the life expectancy for a 75 year old male.
The lower life expectancy for males is due to patriarchal privilege. That and experiencing life married to a female. For those males married to a feminist, take off an additional 5 years, but don't worry, you'll probably be glad to get out of Dodge a few years early.
You're still in your prime. Your odds drop at 79.
The After Death documentary is fantastic, for those wondering what happens to us beyond death.
trailer
An inability to focus on spiritual matters is a common affliction, JQA.
I've decided on 100 as the age after which no one is likely to live. I note that the IRS tables for required minimum distributions require a 50% distribution after age 100. I will update if they change the tables.
You'll live for years, Ann. Strong through 80. If you work at it, you'll blow past that as well. Plus, you kinda have to. We're counting on you setting a record for blogging. Every record for blogging. And those records will never be surpassed as this type of thing will vanish soon. With us. :)
Here's to your upcoming birthday in case I miss it. And I could miss it. I'm getting so absent minded I miss a lot of things these days.
I will say this about getting older. No...I'll save it for a post specifically about getting older. Although, I'll forget it by then.
JQ lived to be 80 and was active until the end, collapsing on the House floor and dying shortly afterwards. His father lived to 90 and was the longest-lived of the presidents, until Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush Sr. (Hoover fell short of John Adams's record by a few months).
"Grow old along with me!
The best of life is yet to be
The last of life, for which the first was made."
75 is the new 65.
I'm right behind you at 72 going on 73. My financial fiduciary advisor told me, when helping me plan for my retirement, that I should expect to live to be 85, God willing, according to actuary tables. I came from a working class family, where my mother was public school teacher and my father was a very small farmer. We weren't poor, but very close to it, since I had 5 brothers and 1 sister. I have been blessed to have had a successful career as a lawyer, so I have plenty of money saved up in stocks, IRAs, mutual funds, pensions, and I have been debt free for the past 15 years. One of the weird things about retirement for me is that I am reluctant to spend my earned income on things to enjoy, since I am so used to having to scrape by. So it takes some effort on my part to relax, spend those hard earned dollars, and thoroughly enjoy my retirement.
The limbo experience in these so-called after death situations. It's just an example of what the brain does when it starts to power down, like those strange micro dreams that you have when you're nodding out. People love speculating because it is comforting in the face of absolute uncertainty.
Line from the Spinal Tap sequel: "I was influenced by Bruce Springsteen's book, 'I Am Springsteen ... Going on Spreventeen.'"
[shrug] I'm 4 1/2 years older and I went through this realization that I wasn't going to live forever when I was even younger than 75. The wife and I have traveled, we have seen the pyramids, we've stood atop the Acropolis and gazed into the Parthenon, and we have gazed into the oldest throne room in Europe, in the ruins of the palace at Knossos. My advice is to sure your affairs are in order, make sure your heirs know where everything is if you die suddenly, and enjoy every day as it comes.
When I got my induction notice back in 1968 I wouldn't have bet that I'd live to see 25. Now I'm planning how to celebrate when I turn 80. Will I see 85? Perhaps, but probably not. Who cares. I raised good sons, they married good women, and they are in their proper turn raising good children. There are people alive today who might well be dead except for healthcare-related software that I led the development of. Do I need anything more?
Keep doing your walks and stay active. You can make it to 90 for sure.
“From too much love of living
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.“
Swinburne
Meanwhile, live by St. Augustine’s prayer:
“Lord, make me virtuous. But not yet!”
At 81 I have license to be an eccentric. Who's going to stop me? I have my late father as an example. He only made it to 92, but his mother got to 97, so the genes are in my favor.
The Bible actually gives you till 80, if you are strong, but the last ten will be miserable. So far so good for me.
Abraham’s wife gave birth to Isaac when she was 90
I came for the poetry, but stayed for the actuarial tables.
When I turned 76 I started having problems with stability. Several times last year I began to lose my balance. I never fell because I have been lifting weights to prepare for my old age. I could feel myself start to go and then my leg muscles would pull me upright.
I have been paying attention to Dr. Peter Attia's book "Outlive" to try to stay healthy and mobile.
Just don't get hit by a bus and you'll live to be 90 at least.
Looking at our first 7-10 presidents, its amazing how many of them lived well past "three score and ten". By comparison the ones after the Civil War till WW II didn't do so well. I wonder if smoking had something to do with it. Hoover lived quite a long time though.
A friend of mine says he's going to live to be 100. Its all just a matter of will power. I think.
Happy birthday Ann! I am your younger "sister" - 10 years behind. I turn 65 in a matter of weeks. I'm in the gym 4x a week (ex-competitive powerlifter). Nearly as strong as I was in my 30s at this point. Closest thing to fountain of youth = exercise.
My parents passed away a couple of years ago - leaving a stack of cash for my sister and I. I kept telling them to spend it, but at that point they were too old/tired and uninterested in doing much. Trying to decide if I want to give up on employment or not - I'm one of those weird types that would still have a job even if I won the lottery. A non-stressful, part time job would suit me just fine for years.
An acquaintance at the gym said her husband had told her “Since we’re 73, we better get on with our travels, we’re in the 4th quarter of life”. I replied “Actually, if you believe the Bible that man is allowed three score ten years, we in OT. Let’s just hope it’s not Sudden Death Overtime, like the NFL used to do.”
Our evolution is unwieldy and incompletely characterized. That said, life is an exercise in risk management and then we pass, girls and boys alike.. our memories and capital investments onto our Posterity.
The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
May you, by reason of strength, have many more, but the years fly and in the end we too fly away.
“The limbo experience in these so-called after death situations. It's just an example of what the brain does when it starts to power down, like those strange micro dreams that you have when you're nodding out. People love speculating because it is comforting in the face of absolute uncertainty.“
Howard explains what happens after death by speculating that people speculate.
Here is what happens when you get old according to Joseph Campbell in paraphrase:
You have been driving down the road in an old car. You hit a bump and a fender comes off, you turn a corner and the doors come off, you bounce over a ditch and the frame sticks, and there you are flying along just like you were, with no car to support you.
All I know is I will be bummed if I don’t score 6 score. I’m just so darn curious about how things turn out in 2074. I told that to my dentist and he said well just keep doing what you’re doing and, if nothing else, you’ll likely still have your teeth. I said, great, I’ll donate them to science!
Old age has been a pleasant surprise. It's mostly been a fairly pleasant experience. If you eat right and exercise, you can unlock the secret of perpetual late middle age. The good times aren't in technicolor or as cinematic as when you're young, but they're pleasant. I've hit a few potholes, but not yet the abyss. I guess that will inevitably come. I don't have any religious faith, and I can't see any upside to death.....The plus side of being an octogenarian is that you know with absolute certainty that you won't die young.
When you have no work left to do on the Earth, you go somewhere else where they have jobs. So if you want to stay here, pick up a shovel.
John Quincy Adams was well aware that his father had lived until 90. Strange that he should think that he wouldn't at least equal the man. I take my father's passing at 89 as a likely harbinger of what's in store for me.
Now let’s face it, when girls get old they don’t want to get it on, right? Is that not the great conflict? Talk about a breach of contract!
Exclusive supplier and a legal restriction of competiton seems like an abuse of free market principles.
"I take my father's passing at 89 as a likely harbinger of what's in store for me."
There's a phenomenon known as "regression to the mean," which implies that while there's a good chance you'll live longer than average, you can't expect to live to 89 just from that. I say this as someone whose parents both died at 98.
JQA making it 80 was consistent with this--longer than average, but not as long as the very unusual lifespan of his father.
You know, as we reach an age, we escape the realm of achievement and competitiveness and move to the sphere of at-one-ness where we know everything and take delight in the younger people who are stumbling through the same problems that we solved long ago yet refuse to take our advice.
How many times has your nose pierced daughter advised you that her inheritance would be better used if pre-managed by her trans-friends social collective index fund?
Unlike buffet, I know where I will go when the volcano blows. A 10 acre lot in West Texas.
Thanks for recommending that Saint Croix. I’m checking it out, before I check out, know what I mean.
Being here “alive” is so mysterious and inscrutable, the more I look into it, the more a likelihood of a hereafter presents itself.
Here’s a sample:
“Scientists have determined that creating a complete (perfect) vacuum in a laboratory—defined as a volume containing absolutely no matter or energy—is theoretically and practically impossible.
While modern researchers can achieve Ultra-High Vacuum (UHV) states, the following physical phenomena occur when they attempt to reach a state of "nothingness":
Even if every single atom could be removed, the space would not be empty. According to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, energy levels in a vacuum are never exactly zero. This leads to:
Virtual Particles: Subatomic particles (such as electron-positron pairs) constantly pop in and out of existence, ensuring the "vacuum" is seething with activity.
Zero-Point Energy: The ground state of quantum fields remains present, meaning space itself possesses a non-zero energy.”
Space itself might be alive. God almighty!
In his treatise 'On Old Age', Cicero memorably wrote "There's no man so old and decrepit that he doesn't think he'll make it through one more year". I don't recall whether it was a Classics mailing list or the Volokh Conspiracy that discussed this 10-20 years ago, but the obvious question came up "What is the highest age at which this is still a reasonable expectation?" That is, at what age does your chance of making it through one more year drop below 50%? Someone consulted the actuarial tables and reported that the age is 104. Sounded awfully high to me: very few people make it to that age. But then we thought about it and realized that if (e.g.) you lose 30% of your peers every year in your early 90s, 35% in your late 90s, 40% or more in your early 100s, the magic of compound interest will reduce the number of survivors enormously (99%?) over those 14 years.
Life spans doubled after the true miracle drug penicillin was distributed to civilians soon after 1945. All thoughts about life spans before that are worthless.
Interesting that the Medical Profession grabbed a monopoly on it. Before penicillin all MDs could do was watch you die.
A 70's health guru named Rodale bragged on the Dick Cavett TV show that he would live to his 90's.....then a few minutes later had a stroke and died on stage..
I've read that insurance stats say that the age at which you have less than 50 percent chance of another birthday is 104.
Always 3 months ahead of you (and Rush Limbaugh). I expected 75 to be momentous. Like 21, 40, etc. Nope! Very anticlimactic. Don’t even remember what state we were living in, at the time. Think that it was CO, just before we moved back to AZ. And not just because time has sped up so much…
Life has become somewhat of a blur. Never enough time to get anything done. Mostly that, though, is because getting enough done to stay even seems harder every year. My life seems more and more devoted to taking care of my partner, who has more and more, it seems, going wrong with her life, and esp her health. Compounding this, she is epically stubborn, refusing to accept it. Sometimes, it takes 45 minutes to get up the stairs at night. I want to put in an elevator. Nope! She’ll burn it down. Chair lift? Ditto. Wheelchair? Nope! That’s for old people or those who are too fat. Almost missed a flight 3 weeks ago because it took 45 minutes to get 50 feet to the elevator, to get down for a wheelchair. Such a rush, that I lost my new replacement iPad. Still haven’t found or replaced it yet. She fell 3 times on the way to the elevator, partially because I can’t hold her up anymore. Banged her head pretty bad each time, and the next day, her primary care sent us straight to the ER. Stayed there 4 days. Week just disappeared.
She has doctors in four states, which is why we travel so much. Today we fly PHX/LAS to see her Gyn tomorrow, then back to AZ, in time for joint birthday party for oldest two grandsons, and to see great grandson, SUN. Next WED it is LAS for Pulmonologist, that afternoon DEN For ENT, and back to PHX on FRI/SAT. Sneaking in an extra day to see granddaughter (1 1/2 with most of her teeth, and starting to wander). Need to see a Neurologist (in LAS) before spine surgeon will do much needed back surgery. And we both need to get sleep studies, and I need my annual physical.
The insanity is that we live exactly one mile due east of the Mayo Clinic in PHX. Their ER is average, but otherwise top notch. Best menu around. Average of 2 patients per RN and per LPN on regular floors. Who love being there. Best specialists in the region (except maybe hers in LAS). Adding to the insanity, Mayo is 1/3 the distance to the nearest fire station.
Everything is catch up. Still can’t find that brand new (daytime) iPad. Checked every possible L/F. Took my big (night) iPad to the local Apple Store last week, and was supposed to get it back MON. Turns out the Genius Bar idiot there lied. Next week. Dropped by to pick it up, and got the bad news. So was headed to Costco to pick up a cheap one for the trip this week to LAS. Got a call from you know who. Why was I going to Costco without her? An extra 45 minutes to drop by home and pick her up. The bad news was that she can’t stand on the concrete very long so is impatient at stores like that, barely giving me time for buying the iPad. The good news was that I only lost her once, for only about 5 minutes. Where was her phone. She left it home because I always have mine. Reminded her that doesn’t do any good if she loses me.
I have never multi tasked very well. Gotten worse with age. She still does fine there, but I have gotten worse. I am now imposing a rule that I do one thing at a time for her. Period. Ever since her requirements to keep popping down to the bar four times last year, in quick succession, resulted in flooding out both of our units in LAS. Still haven’t gotten that all fixed. And something similar in MT. I should maybe have my new DL from MT finally, maybe, in the mailbox today, from turning 75 three months ago. Still don’t have my passport card replacement, and she lost hers for a couple weeks, which made travel by air hard, esp since she hasn’t had a valid DL for three years, from when she turned 65.
Oh, to be 60 again, still thinking of sex and skiing, instead of doctors. And able to support her when she falls, which, being a dancer, she never did. Still have my health, but not my strength, or time.
75 in 1842 is at least 100 today.
“ A 70's health guru named Rodale bragged on the Dick Cavett TV show that he would live to his 90's.....then a few minutes later had a stroke and died on stage..”
“ I've read that insurance stats say that the age at which you have less than 50 percent chance of another birthday is 104.”
“ I've read that insurance stats say that the age at which you have less than 50 percent chance of another birthday is 104.”
One of the things that worries me about getting old, is watching all my friends die. My father told me that one of the harder things about being in your 80s is watching all your friends die. By his mid 80s, he was the oldest man in our church. He had that honor for almost a decade.
We had a rash of deaths in the early 2020s, in our early 70s. Some maybe from COVID-19, but I think that the ModRNA vaccines were more likely. The medical establishment, and especially the government health authorities, were just so idiotically stupid there. There were never any valid health or medical reasons to vaccinate anyone reasonably healthy younger than, say, 65, maybe even 70, with a barely tested, completely novel, gene therapy product. I still don’t know if either of us ever caught the virus. It’s too much bother, for no discernible benefit, to find out.
At 75, the deaths are starting. And the health problems leading up to it. Plus the mental issues. Every time I forget something, I wonder if dementia is right around the corner. Or, more likely, when she, (previously) with the photographic memory, forgets something. No actual Alzheimer's yet, around me, but we seem to have a cluster of past president’s of my fraternity chapter having lost it, with me being the big exception so far. So far, everyone I know who has slid into dementia has gone softly. Like Ronald Reagan. Even Joe Biden wasn’t that bad. But it seemed to run maybe 50/50 in my parents’ generation, with the women taking it worse, and the men more accepting. So, I worry more about her, whose mother was a trial and very stressful her last 5 years. Her father did have Alzheimer's, but never lost his ability to charm everyone, and esp women. He would have been dangerous with them, if he hadn’t been so devoted to her mother.
Read and believe the Book of Romans, Chapter Eight. Follow that with John, Chapter 14. That's all you need to know in order to live this life meaningfully, no matter your age.
As others have noted, his own father lived to be 90. What rational did he have for thinking that, having already lived to 70 he might not live to 80 or even 90? Dummy. His attitude probably cost him those extra 10 years!
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