What was your response when you saw the above photo? What were your first thoughts?

What were you feelings when you saw this photo?

If you look like the woman in the above photo and people don’t know who you are and you don’t have a security detail with you, most people you encounter will be convinced that you are sweet and dotty. Many are likely to assume that you have dementia. In reality, the probability that an older adult does not have dementia is far greater.

Absolute numbers are increasing because people are growing older and the human population continues to increase. In the Netherlands, poverty appears to be an important factor. That might make it stress- and nutrition-related. Unfortunately, the Netherlands also struggles with keeping povertyism at bay.

PERSONAL VIEW

I had always looked forward to getting older. I wanted to grow as old as possible. Because I wanted to do so many things with my life! If you think about everything you did between ages 20 and 30 or 25 and 35, then just think about what you can accomplish between 55 and 75 or 85!

What I had not counted on at all is the contempt you increasingly often encounter and the stigma you increasingly become burdened with once you have passed the age of 45. Holy cow. It’s horrific. It’s also very strange and it appears to be typically western.

MY OWN BIAS

But I am biased. In 2023, I accidentally ended up at an address that had a very heavy age-related stigma attached to it. People almost automatically assumed that I had dementia because if you took the stairs or elevator to my floor and went the wrong way, you would end up surrounded by women who did all have dementia.

This was a building in which adults aged 55 and over were isolated from society and automatically dismissed by the rest of the local community.

This was in a country where a political party had just submitted a (proposal for a) bill that if successful would have allowed euthanasia for no other reason than a person’s advanced age.

SLIPPERY SLOPE

This is an often used phrase within this type of context and in bioethics in general but that would genuinely have been the case here. There would be no justification left for rejecting euthanasia for teenagers or for people hitting 30 or for men and women in the middle of a mid-life crisis at 45.

I find the idea of euthanasia for the over-75s because their lives are being made so miserable by the rest of society that they feel it’s no longer worth living, in spite of being in good health… immensely worrisome.

It further solidifies the horrific level of gerontophobia that seems to be simmering throughout Dutch society these days. The idea that anyone who is over 55 shouldn’t want anything at all from life any longer is too prevalent.

I left the Netherlands when I was in my 30s because I was already considered too old for many things back then, but looked too young. I had no future here. In the United States I discovered that DOBs do not go on one’s CV there because your DOB is not considered relevant information. Thirty years later, there is an even stronger obsession with age in the Netherlands than there used to be. It is common for Dutch people to include their age now when introducing themselves within a professional context. On me, that comes across as bonkers.

The only protection still seems to come from the courts. At least that’s something.

It already seemed to me that Dutch society has become a little too “plastic”, too Ken & Barbie, too artificial, too inauthentic (it is hip to send staff to courses that teach them how to appear more authentic and the word “authentic” has become over-used within the labour market context), too sterile, too consumerist. This is the same as the complete crazy trend here of for example throwing out all bread in the evening that was baked that same morning. I also see a lot of perfectly fine other products all all kinds simply being discarded. I have been calling this “obscene prosperity”, but it goes beyond that.

If you didn’t know who the above woman is, click on this link to find out.

You’ll find a link for who the guy is under the next few photos.

If you don’t know who the above five people are, click on this link and click on this link to find out.

I’ve just spent two decades first constantly hearing that I am a liar and a thief, into drug dealing and what not and certainly not capable and educated, because I am a migrant, hence low-skilled, next increasingly often being considered too old and/or dimwitted to be able to wipe down tables and god knows what else.

Because I am over 45, I must have a learning-disability or have beginning dementia? I can no longer simply be who I am? If that is how you think, I don’t even want you in my life in any way. I want nothing to do with you. You’d be wasting my time and slowing me down. You’d be getting in my way.

One way around this kind of nonsense is to be your own boss, by the way. I made this video below about three years ago, during the Covid lockdowns. I can either make myself look quite old or take years off by using a specific combination of lighting and camera (phone). When I recently stopped paying too much attention to this, among other things, because I felt that this just feeds into the bias, I discovered that when I do that, YouTube creates the dopiest thumbnails for my shorts to attract viewers who see older adults as something to laugh about. Perhaps this can actually help counter the stigma, however.

I spent the first two decades of my life often being dismissed in person because I looked so much younger than I actually was.

Funnily enough, particularly most of today’s youngsters know almost nothing about IT because they all grew up with working smartphones. It’s like a doorknob to them. Something you use without thinking. They know which buttons to push, and how to use their thumbs really fast. They also usually have good near sight.

Unless they happen to be nearsighted, older adults often have less good near sight. That can make them appear slow. It does not mean that they think slow. You don’t think with your eyes, just like you don’t think with your skin either.

Do you know who the following old farts are?

The ones at the top are all in finance and economics, the three at the bottom in public health. That people over 45 all have dementia or are at least as slow as molasses is total baloney.

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TIPS

• Stay fit! Walk! Eat well! Weed out ultra-processed foods (which includes things like many types of bread, too). Go veggies and fruits and organic. That said, also make sure you eat enough protein. Tofu and beans, peas and buckwheat can provide that too. You need more protein when you’re a little older. Make sure you get enough vitamin B12, too.

• There can be a lot of wear and tear on the neuromusculoskeletal system and that can slow you down, sure. But a lot of that is fixable! Go see a good chiropractor! I have recently experienced tremendous improvements by merely “chiropractoring” myself, inspired by the YouTube videos with animals by chiropractor Doug Willen. It’s amazing, the difference that it makes. Holy cow! I had a rib out of alignment (caused by a bad fall, years ago, after I was catapulted across the room when my foot got trapped behind a computer cable) and working on my spinal discs has made a huge difference too. It’s quite astonishing.