Is it better to die before you get too old?

^ .

I'd like to live for as long as I can, but also die before reaching that point.

Dying before you get too old is passé and cliche. Although the body isn’t totally happy with it at times, my mind is loving to get older. I wish I had the knowledge I have now when I wore a younger man’s clothes, because let’s face it most of us are stupid dumb cunts when younger and think we know it all. Now that I’m older I know that I know it all Becoming really old is another matter entirely, but I’m more than happy with the life I’ve lived up to this point and know that while materially speaking I didn’t get too much, life has given and shown me more than most.

I genuinely used to think 40 or 50 was probably too old when I was in primary school and would've probably scheduled euthanasia back then for my 50th birthday. My parents are making the 50s look a bit uncomfortable, but not too bad now, so I'll revise that upwards. I guess it's not a fixed age that's too old, so much as a quality of life that's too aged. You see people struggling daily with stuff that seems so simple and easy to us in our relative youth... I can't imagine not hating every second of it in that position.

I've been suicidal on and off for years, though, as actually appreciating life or daring to sort it out is far too big of an ask... So if I make it to "too aged", I'm sure I'll take no persuading to check out and call it a day. Hell, I think any suitably disabling occurrence would do for me.

Oh god, yeah, that's sad as fuck. When dementia arrives, is it too late to even think about suicide? Or are you just too naive to even consider that you and your family are suffering?

I bounce around with this question about when is the right time to die. I've met old people who have lived 10-20 years too long. There's a point in their life where they refuse to exercise, refuse to eat, never get out of their sleep clothes, and just wait to die. I suspect it has a lot to do with keeping the mind and body fit and finding meaning in your existence, but if you don't have it before its too late, the weight of aging is just too heavy to resist.

I want to be an old man getting high on medicine sitting on a porch.

Depends. Early diagnosis helps, but I think the reason more people don't take the sideways shuttle off this mortal coil is because there is no real way to know how fast the damn thing will progress: you don't know how much sanity is left to you, so planning an exit date is pretty hard. I'd imagine that you always think there is one more good day left in you, or tomorrow will be better, and next thing you know you're openly masturbating in the high street and beating your wife because your brain is basically mush.

Indeed...
I remember we had a similar, umm, incident with my late grandpa, who was 92 at the time.

40oz there seems to be something messed up with the Quick Quoting popup thing, it adds some additional garbage in the text box

Recently visiting a relative in a short-term nursing home (which she's no longer in, fortunately) made me want to take up smoking and bacon swallowing on a regular, ten minute basis. It's not the getting old part that bothers me. It's how utterly worthless the people who worked there were at their jobs. Nothing was in any order, they knew nothing about anything and blamed someone else who wasn't around when they got asked what they were doing or should have been doing. That person, once contacted, knew of course even less and blamed someone else too. Their stance on drug usage was "the more the merrier". Just dope them up (down?) so the staff can get some peace and quiet. It seems as if that shit is to be expected here in the north. So landing in such a place is out of the question for me, if I have any say in the matter. Better to go quickly and with some dignity.