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

What were you feelings when you saw this photo?

The discussion around Joe Biden’s age has saddened me. Because it is skewing the picture about age further than it already is. 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.

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/or 65 and/or 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.

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 confess that I am a little fed up.

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.

In science, it used to be that WOMEN were always expected to be secretaries. Now it’s OLDER WOMEN who are assumed to be secretaries, I’ve noticed. At least, that seems to be the case in the Netherlands.

I spent the first two decades of my life often being dismissed in person because I looked so much younger than I actually was. In the Netherlands, I also was also sometimes dismissed because on paper, because I didn’t fit into the most desirable age bracket (22 to 28, roughly). As it happened, I went to university a little later in life.

So I no longer waste any energy on battling ageist attitudes in order to get ahead. I no longer spend any time on for example hearing women who really should know better introduce themselves one by one professionally who then end their introduction with “and I am 41 years old” because they don’t want to ask me what my age is but hope that they will get me to say it that way.

I’ve been through a heck of a lot of hardship in the past fifteen years and yes, as a result, I likely look older than I am now. Some of that is probably reversible. It doesn’t matter.

Also, those dark circles around my eyes can make me look really tired, but that is no more than reversible skin pigmentation. People don’t know that. Perhaps I should let it be known widely that I have pigment dispersion syndrome and leave it at that, secretly chuckling about it. I’ve recently started to use dark eye shadow and concealer, to make the pigmentation blend in a little. I have used dark eye shadow in the more distant past too, so this concession is not as huge as it may seem at first sight.

That said, I repeat that I don’t want to work or associate with people who are really hung up on what someone looks like as opposed to what someone is capable of, how someone thinks or is like in terms of character.

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.

Treating people who are over 45 as if they are naughty 5-year-olds is despicable, too.

Just like what used to be the case and still often is for people who have Down or are autistic, the stigma that is pushed upon us older adults – particularly those of us who can’t afford million-dollar haircuts, don’t eat super-nourishing superfoods and don’t have healthy-looking expensive tans – and the isolation that we are forced into, along with the constant belittling, is the source of a lot of problems that are often associated with being over 45 or 55.

This is not a chicken-or-egg question. If you are persistently being treated as if you are a naughty five-year-old and if people are constantly threatening to take your agency away and to a degree simply do it, as if it is the most normal thing in the world, it can really affect you. If you dare break the mold of what you must behave like, in view of your “advanced” age, and remain true to who you are, the backlash can be tremendous. There must be something wrong with you. They don’t see you doing the exact same things as everyone else, so they figure that there’s gotta be something wrong with you.

That’s hogwash. Biased baloney.

So is the conviction that good health is no longer possible and so we older adults must take tons of medications and put up with a lot of stuff instead of want to solve any health issues because then we are called cantankerous and demanding.

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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 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.