They are all unable to fend for themselves or express how they feel. They all need a lot of care and attention and can be very demanding. The last two also have to be fed & toileted.
So why is it that the first two images make people go "Squeeeeeeee!" but the third one doesn't?
Is it because the first two images give you something to look forward to but the third one doesn't?
We're all going to end up old one day if we're "lucky". Just hope and/or pray that when you get there, you either have caring partners and/or relatives to look after you, or independent care for the elderly has improved a lot. I've seen things.
15 comments:
After watching her mom with Alzheimer, my own mom decided she would commit suicide if she would start to develop such condition. She told me it was her wish to avoid life in disgusting shape. It is several last years she keeps asking me about the better way to do so because she things I know a lot about human health (mostly because it is difficult to know less then her). I know it is not the pose or something done in order to induce a certain response. She actually hates very old people who are unable to take care of themselves. She never visits my grandma in the adult care facility. I don't put any pressure on my mom because I think at her age she has a right to visit or not whoever she likes, but it makes me sad. It is a good chance I would live a long life, what if my son someday would find me disgusting?
Unfortunately, due to the Dunning-Kruger effect, you aren't aware that you have dementia.
I had a test in 2006 where I was injected with 10 units of fast-acting insulin to see the effect of hypoglycaemia on my pituitary gland (it's supposed to secrete GH in response). I became demented but I was not aware of it, as I was too demented to know that I was demented. To me, everything was fine. I guess that's how mum feels.
Yes, sometimes ignorance could be a blessing.
How dangerous the experiment was? I don't know details but I thought somebody may die from the insulin overdose. I am sure you were monitored by health care professionals.
The test was quite dangerous, so I had to lie on a hospital bed with a tube in a vein in my arm so that blood samples could be taken every 30 minutes.
When I became demented, the nurse gave me a sandwich to eat. I was told that my blood glucose fell to 1.5mmol/L (27mg/dL). My pituitary gland failed the test (GH secretion was 60% down).
Why did it happened with your pituitary gland? What made your doctor to to suspect it needed a check? I am asking because it is not a regular procedure, unlike most other tests.
I am a little bit surprised to see you on line - I thought it was the wrong time for your time zone. It is 10 pm right now,I am going to walk before going to sleep, it is a not a year-round opportunity in Florida, and has to be valued.
It just stopped working, bit by bit. First TSH went. Then LH & FSH went. Then I became depressed again, so my consultant suspected a lack of GH.
I'm up late as I went to a music jam session in a pub. I don't visit mum on Tuesdays, so I can have a lie-in. It's gone 3am. Nighty-night!
"So why is it that the first two images make people go "Squeeeeeeee!" but the third one doesn't?"
Aren't we sort of programmed by evolution to like children and puppies? I think uncute mammal young face a distinct evolutionary disadvantage.
I don't think so. In the Third World, elders are held in high esteem as they are founts of knowledge.
In the First World, the young are "know-it-all"s, thanks to the media, Google, Wikipedia etc and elders are considered wrinkly people who know nothing & "get in the way".
Not sure about the Second World.
Probably seeing a wrinkled face is a painful reminder about the normal dynamic of our life - the only way not to became old is to be prematurely dead. We know our life will end, but don't like to be reminded. I know quite a few people who are scared to see a funeral.
I also think it is something genetically rooted. People normally enjoy seeing a koala, a baby seal(huge eyes, round and smooth), but many find lizards and turtles(slowly moving, wrinkled, with folds of loose skin)to look unpleasant. Probably, it would be fare to add a picture of a turtle head to the images.
Human nature is unkind, we often have to work on ourselves to suppress feeling we know are unethical and to fight unethical instincts. Over-vise we would be stealing, hostile to strangers disrespectful to elders. From time to time the primal nature takes hold, especially in crowd. Recently I observed how the somewhat obnoxious commenter Kevin with poor debating skills was given a mob treatment at the Richard blog. Free the animal! Yahoo! Guys were definitely enjoying on a very primal level giving additional kicks to the already banned person. It is just a detached observation, not a moralization.
On additional note, thank you, Sean, for trying to defend me . It was a very heartwarming experience. Usually I manage to avoid a hostility, but not in that recent case.
Hi Galina,
I agree, but I don't want to edit this post any more as Chris Highcock has copied it on his blog. I personally like lizards & turtles.
I'm trying to make the world a better place to live in for everybody. If it means annoying certain people to get things done, tough!
I noticed that somebody had a go at you because of your language. You speak much better English than I speak Russian.
My Live Traffic Feed tells me that you are using Firefox 9.0 (amongst other things). There's a spelling-checker add-on. Click https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/british-english-dictionary/
In your browser, select Tools, Options, Advanced, General and tick the box for Check my spelling as I type. Mis-spelled words are underlined in red. Right-click on a mis-spelled word to select the correctly-spelled word or to add the word to the dictionary. There is an option to change the language of the spelling-checker dictionary.
Sean's a good bloke, even though he called me a cunt. I assumed that he was using the word as a term of endearment!
Ha ha, Nigel, never going to let me forget that, are you ;)
I used to teach at a Native American college, and the respect for elders was very much different in their culture.
We had a summer program of high school kids and the process was interesting. I remember one kid was being a real smart-ass when we went to Los Alamos to see the lab and get a tour from a famous Navaho physicist. The guy finally held a long silence then softly quipped a mocking remark and all the kids laughed loudly and the smart-ass was very effectively abashed.
This respect for elders might just be typical for HG cultures in general. It's easy to romanticize Native Americans and HGers in general. One doesn't want to get caught up in paleo-reenactment
@Galina, no problem, as you might have noticed I can fly off the handle and often do so too easily. I think that person was really bordering on just being a troll, but having spent many years living in a country where they "have a different word for everything" as Steve Martin said, it was pretty ridiculous.
Thank you for all your suggestions, I will follow it. Often I notice a mistake after I have already said or posted something. It happens with a higher probability when I get exited and mentally carried away. Person should receive an honest feed-back, right now I live in the South of USA and people here often are too polite to say more then "O, I just love your ascent", well, I don't.
I hope a practice carries me in the right direction, I also hope that using a foreign language is beneficial for my brain, like learning facts about a body metabolism is definitely good for your brain. Learning is healthy.
praguestepchild said...
"Ha ha, Nigel, never going to let me forget that, are you ;)"
Um, no. Not ever. Never! ;-p
"This respect for elders might just be typical for HG cultures in general."
That's a possibility. In the "good old days", we used to seek knowledgeable people in order to learn things from them. Now we don't. Also, old people smell odd, due to the presence of a fatty acid in their skins. Mum sometimes has bad breath due to not having had her teeth cleaned that morning. She's in a £1,000 per week care home.
I was wondering about that different body smell the old people get . Did you read "Towards the end of time" by J.Updike? It is my second favorite novel among all he authored, the "Rabbit" series are the best of course, especially the last book. There are a lot interesting thoughts about aging there. The guy in the novel "Towards the end of time" who was old had a wrong smell no matter how often he bathed or changed clothes.
I haven't read that book.
Anyway, I'm going out soon for a walk, followed by an evening of live music (some of it possibly sung by me) at a pub.
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