It used to be we grew up with our grandparents. We had lots of contact with older people because we had tighter-knit communities.
Some people seem ignorant what aging is and how it works.
I'm going to give you a primer on it, something that my 8-year-old self would probably have liked to know.
* Once you hit puberty you're a teenager.
* Around 18-20 (later for men, earlier for women) the brain begins to finish development. This is the ideal age to get married and start having kids.
* Around 25 you are your physical prime. Although you may get SMARTER about exercise and physical strength, you will never perform as well at that sort of thing as you did at 25.
* Around 30 you are in your prime. Not only do you have a strong physical body but you are at the peak of your mental performance too. This is the best time to be a father or mother of young kids, which means you needed to be bearing children 10 years earlier.
* Around 35-40 you start to notice that things are getting harder to do. Simple tasks involve pain. If you exercise it takes longer to recover and you don't see the gains you used to see. You have to really watch what you eat now too.
* Around 50 you've understood that you are now old. You are trying to desperately hold on to whatever physical health you have and you are trying to maintain your mental abilities. It doesn't matter what you do you are always in pain and everything hurts. Things just get worse every day.
* 60 and beyond -- you are only holding death off for a few days at a time. If you are "blessed" with the senescence gene you can live past 80. If not, then once you reach 80 you are basically a walking corpse. Any minor thing, even a broken toe, can lead to a series of health crises that lead to your death.
You guys think that Hulk Hogan was healthy at 70. He was not. He might've put on a good face -- old people don't want to worry younger people and they want to spend their last days in happiness not worrying about things that can't be stopped. But based on what little I have heard, he was probably in severe pain and was getting surgery. Most surgeons won't operate on people older than 65 or so because of the risk. There's a good chance he just died after surgery because some of the medicines he was taking messed something up.
If you're in your 20s and 30s, enjoy life as much as you can while it lasts. Exercise and diet are important. So is exercising your brain. Things are going to start going south in your 40s so just be ready for it.
I always thought it was stupid to "save up for retirement" when many people don't make it to 65. You should instead "save up for inheritance". If you have a little money, enjoy it with your kids today rather than saving up for an adventure when you'll be too old to enjoy it and your kids won't have time to enjoy it with you.
I like to say "invest in your kids". I understand that, one day, I won't be able to do *anything* for myself and will need daily care or die. Rather than try to get as much money as I can, I'm trying to build both my relationship with my kids as well as their competence and character so that they will be there for me like I was there for them.
It's a risk. They might just leave me to die anyway, for any number of reasons. But, if that's the case, I'd rather just die anyway than live in some home being cared for by wage slaves.