This is a delicate subject because one can view it as a call for those in their 20s to make the most of that time, which is a fine message, to something tantamount to ageism.
While it's true that those in their 30s or older can be closed to new idea, that's not because they're "old", it's because they're people and some people are closed-minded.
I find a lot of these complaints are more about the cultural and lifestyle gap between those in their 20s and those who are older.
I remember the 80s. I'm not particularly interested in going bar-hopping. I find most social media to be an annoying drivel from people who vary between exhibitionists to just liking the sound of their own voices (everybody is talking, nobody is listening). I don't have that same sense of enthusiasm because for me everything isn't new. Most things really are derivative. To paraphrase something Don Draper said, I've reached a point on my life where I think I've basically met every kind of person there is. That's not to say that people can't surprise you. They can. It's just that you realize they're not as different as they once seemed.
This is exacerbated in the startup world since so many are cut from the same cloth: valedictorians in high school, magna cum laude, graduates of Stanford/MIT/CMU/Columbia, interned at Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft/Google, now working for one of those or some hot startup. It's a whittled down group of the technocratic elite who often-times don't really know how privileged and lucky they are.
At Google there tends to be two kinds of people: those who have worked in the outside world, particularly in Corporate America, and know how lucky they are and how different this is. And those that haven't and think this is just how the world is.
I don't begrudge them their successes and accomplishments but it is a form of cultural isolation--even inbreeding.
All of this means there tends to be a smaller set of common social norms with the "20s set".
At the same time, I pick up new technologies, languages and frameworks as much as I ever did. Possibly more so. Just now I've been doing a lot of AngularJS. That certainly didn't exist in my 20s. While I may not have the same youthful exuberance, I have experience and can draw lessons and parallels from programming in every stage of the Web's development (from CGI scripts on).
I will say this to those planning to have children: do it while you're young and it has nothing do with fertility. Children simply take an enormous amount of energy and commitment and this is far easier to bounce back from the younger you are.
As for the rest of it? Take another comment on this thread:
> Once somebody is fully set in their ways it's almost impossible to change their mind without divine intervention
That's fairly blatant ageism but, more than that, it's from someone who only knows people like him- or herself that wants to surround themselves with the same. Like I said: commonality and shared social norms are really what's in play there.
I completely agree with what cletus says. I'm 43 years old today. Some things just feel uninteresting because I started doing them too young. Interestingly programming is not one of them, I have been doing it for 30 years. On the other hand, I have been rock climbing for 7 years and I'm better than ever [in case you care: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olEgfe4cYuU ]. It still feels pretty new to me. I know 25-year-olds who started climbing as kids, reached their potential and lost interest.
Everyone is different, every decade in a person's life is different. In my personal case, my work between 30 and 40 was far better than what I did between 20 and 30. I feel pretty inspired right now.
This type of post is the stuff that you want to say to yourself at every point in your life (you can only make the best of the present, after all). It doesn't really work as advice to others.
Way OT but let's do this. Note: climb V5/6 currently.
1. Yes that is bouldering, but bouldering is a subset of rock climbing, as is sport climbing.
2. Bouldering is frequently about balance and power, for some problems flexibility isn't as crucial. I climb in jeans outdoors, sometimes it's the best option as rock can quickly cut through lighter materials. My jeans are skinny and stretchy.
3. Climbing works your core, simply by climbing more and more.
4. Don't play the grades game, don't buy a hangboard. Go into a gym and have fun on the boulder. Don't try too hard and hurt your tendons, they take years to grow accustom to the stress induced by hard bouldering.
SF is very fascinated with Yosemite, but there are other areas that also push the sport. Obviously, the Europeans have done alot. Bouldering is itself a pretty hardcore activity, and one that has pioneered at times certain techniques that have had broader impact. Some of the best in also in the USA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hueco_Tanks
Where are you based? I picked up climbing in May 2012, and can offer you some advice based on what I've been through. Email's in my profile to continue the chat if you want.
Find your closest climbing gym and show up. I have very limited climbing experience, and only in gyms, but it's one of those things that it's just easier to show up.
Are programming/rock climbing overlapping interests everywhere or more so in the Bay Area? The problem solving aspect of climbing (particularly bouldering) always appealed to me, and I always see programmers at the climbing gym. But it seems like a disproportionately high number of programmer friends (compared to other friends) climb in SF.
Where I am (not SF) there's definitely a large showing of programmer/climbers at the local gym. I think a large part of it does have to with the problem solving aspect (hell, we call them problems even), but for me it has more to do with it fitting in with my life a lot more cleanly then any other sport does. I don't have to change into a uniform or put on a whole mess of gear or anything of that sort (when I'm going to the gym anyway). I just walk in, put on my shoes, and go. There's no inertia to climbing. There's not many sports that give this; "pumping iron" can but personally I enjoy climbing and solving problems to counting to thirty while sitting in a chair.
There's more to lifting than counting while sitting down! Strength training that has a focus on powerlifting and Olympic lifting are very different than the bodybuilding focus that tends to pervade most gyms. CrossFit is something to check out if you want more fun strength training.
I apologize, I was being dismissive. I wasn't trying to say that weightlifting/bodybuilding/etc lacked meaning or were inferior, just that the motivations are different, and for me personally the intrinsic motivation of them (this muscle needs to be worked out, then this one, etc...) doesn't work as well for me as the extrinsic motivation (I'm going to finish this problem today) of climbing.
That's my point, though. The mentality of "this muscle needs to be worked, then this one..." is a bodybuilder mentality. It's not shared by strength athletes in powerlifting, Olympic lifting, strong man, and the much newer CrossFit. When I lift, I focus on movements, not muscle groups. I focus on big, compound movements like squats, deadlifts or clean and press, not on specific muscles.
Basically, bodybuilding is concerned with aesthetics, while the strength sports are concerned with performance. When I train, my motivation comes from the challenge. Can I deadlift 405 for 5 reps? Can I hit a new personal record of 435? It's a question of raw capability: what are the limits of what I can do? When you get into high rep rangs with compound movements, it becomes an issue of anaerobic endurance: can I squat 235 for 20 reps, or will the pain and exhaustion be too much?
Waterloo, Ontario is a minor Canadian tech hub, and the climbing gym here is definitely full of programmers, mathematicians, physicists, and generally nerdy types.
This came up a few weeks ago when I was discussing a ray tracer with a classmate in the locker room and everybody else in the room had something to chip in. I wouldn't even expect that programmer-density on campus, never mind a gym 30 minutes away.
Here in Vancouver there is definitely a lot of programming types at the rock climbing gym and at the crags. Other professionals that seem to be attracted to it are Engineers (of all types), Geologists, and Environmental Sciences people.
At the Seattle Bouldering Project I estimate a quarter of all climbers are from Google, Amazon or MS.
Also a high proportion of resumés crossing my desk mention climbing.
Nice looking problem. Castle rock is one of my favorite spots in the states. Small, but by Fontainebleau-esque in style.
And hey, if you do ever make it out to Font itself, look me up. It's paradise for the 7a (V6) boulderer, and we've got a house here. It'd be cool to meet a fellow HN'r on the rocks.
> I don't have that same sense of enthusiasm because for me everything isn't new.
I agree. I think one of the reasons why people in 30s seem to be more "close-minded" to new ideas is because they already have a decade of experience of the (then) fresh new stuff. This is especially true for the IT world.
Let's face it, we are reinventing the wheel in every 5 years. Just look at how frameworks and programming languages go in and out of fashion. You may say "oh man, not again!" when an enthusiastic young programmer tells you how great node.js is - which may be true, but in your open-minded 20s you already learnt Erlang, Twisted, EventMachine and Java NIO for the very same thing.
I'm not yet 30, but I already feel that I am becoming more conservative. I have seen a lot of "hot stuff" come and go, so I try to learn from technologies that seem to persist. Look at C, this old monster: it survived its creator, and for a reason. Now look at YUI or ExtJS: they were so "hot" around 2007, and I haven't even heard them mentioning for a long time. When somebody says that framework/language X is so great and "hot", I am a bit more careful now that 5 years ago: will it be around in 2 years? If not, does it worth even bothering?
Is this closed-mindness or wisdom? Very hard to tell. I am trying to be open-minded in a sense that I try to look and evaluate everything new, but I'm sure that I say "no" to much more things than 5 years before. I wonder how I would see myself in the eye of my 5 year-old younger me.
While it's true that those in their 30s or older can be closed to new idea, that's not because they're "old", it's because they're people and some people are closed-minded.
I feel social pressure plays a big part. Even the so-called open-minded 20 year olds will make fun of people in their 30s and 40s who still try to live an "unsettled" lifestyle. To accept wild and crazy ideas in your 20s just means you still have some growing up to do. To do the same later in life shows an abandonment of your responsibilities, which is frowned upon by society – in North America, at least.
Yes, it's blatant ageism. As much as we hate to admit it, our minds and bodies start to decline almost as soon as we reach maturity. Not only does raw intelligence drop as we age, but some personality traits change. Of the Big Five, openness to new experiences takes the biggest hit. See http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ#aging and http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/www/external/labor/agin... for the scientific evidence.
Obviously these stats don't mean that old people are stupid and close-minded. Knowledge accumulates and helps offset many of the deficiencies. Still, this evidence does suggest that young people might want to change their behavior to benefit their future selves. This doesn't just mean making the most of the time you have. Exercise, continuous learning, and a few drugs can help to slow the decline. As an analogy, think of athletes. A 50 year-old is never going to win the Boston marathon. But with proper training, nutrition, and maybe a few performance-enhancing drugs, they can beat 95% of 25 year-olds.
Being open to new experiences, in my opinion, is much more a matter of the people you surround yourself with, than with physiology. Sure, your brain may change a little bit in your 20s and not so much in your 30s, but if you have the right friends, perhaps some younger friends, they will drag you into new things.
I have felt that palpably running my own company for the last 5 years. In the first few years, it was just my wife and I doing everything, writing the code and running the business. As we started to make enough money that we could hire people, I started to notice how set in our ways we became.
Since we had started writing iPhone apps near the beginning of the mobile revolution, our code was written to suit older devices. In places, we did things for performance reasons so our apps would work well on old phones. Also, we never adopted ARC, because that's just not how we did it. But as we started to hire people, our engineers pushed us to change our old ways, and as a result, our code became much better.
So, I say - don't fear the reaper. Just find some young friends (or employees). I turned 30 this year, so I have a few gray hairs, but working with people in their 20s really has changed my ideas on the right way to do things, and given me perspective on my own life.
One thanksgiving I showed an 80 year old how to put a candle out with a hand gesture. He was really into it an in his words there are far fewer really new things at 80 than you might think. Which struck me as the core of a lot of ageism, when your young doing just about anything is a solid learning environment, but eventually it becomes tough to continue to develop new skills. Your job becomes all about leveraging what you already know not expanding you into new areas the same for your social circle and if your not careful hobby's.
reading this i thought you might be 40+ and was suprised you write "turned 30 this year".
You make yourself much older than you are..i will turn 30 too in 2 months but i have never felt to need to "surround myself with younger people in their 20s"..Many of my friends are late 20s, mid 20s or even early 20s, still nobody feels that anyone of the other is "old" or "young", its just not much of a difference to be noticed anyway.
>Of the Big Five, openness to new experiences takes the biggest hit.
Interesting links.
Perhaps I have some sort of Benjamin Button thing going on. I spent most of my "youth" being quite reserved. Up until my mid-20s I was primarily concerned with not screwing up what I believed to be precious, fragile success.
I've increasingly opened up as I've gotten older and at 33 feel decades "younger" than I did heading into my 20s for whatever that's worth.
I wonder what my chart would look like? Would I actually find myself rising in these regards relative to the average, only myself or not at all?
>Exercise, continuous learning, and a few drugs can help to slow the decline.
I could not agree more.
I credit frequent, intense exercise with at least a much benefit to my mind as my body and find boredom hard to fathom.
I'd put surrounding yourself and interacting with the right and likely ever-evolving set of people up there too. Complacency and conformity lead to mental atrophy.
> those who have worked in the outside world ... and know how lucky they are and how different this is. And those that haven't and think this is just how the world is.
As a mid-30s guy at Google for 2 years, I'm never sure whether fresh grads getting their first job at Google will ever know (or need to know) how lucky they are.
I agree with the author's view. For the lack of better words, I think the author intends to imply that the struggle to learn new skills in the 20's is what leads to a successful later life. In the 20's you can take a lot of chances, risk misfires and learn from it. A personal cognitive pattern recognition for problem solving emerges from these struggles to learn new things. This pattern recognition when applied later in life with maturity and deep thought result in successful decisions. Please don't make ageism such a taboo. For example I have never heard or seen anyone applying ageism to children and old men. Ageism has a lot to do with biological growth than social apartheid.
While it's true that those in their 30s or older can be closed to new idea, that's not because they're "old", it's because they're people and some people are closed-minded.
I find a lot of these complaints are more about the cultural and lifestyle gap between those in their 20s and those who are older.
I remember the 80s. I'm not particularly interested in going bar-hopping. I find most social media to be an annoying drivel from people who vary between exhibitionists to just liking the sound of their own voices (everybody is talking, nobody is listening). I don't have that same sense of enthusiasm because for me everything isn't new. Most things really are derivative. To paraphrase something Don Draper said, I've reached a point on my life where I think I've basically met every kind of person there is. That's not to say that people can't surprise you. They can. It's just that you realize they're not as different as they once seemed.
This is exacerbated in the startup world since so many are cut from the same cloth: valedictorians in high school, magna cum laude, graduates of Stanford/MIT/CMU/Columbia, interned at Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft/Google, now working for one of those or some hot startup. It's a whittled down group of the technocratic elite who often-times don't really know how privileged and lucky they are.
At Google there tends to be two kinds of people: those who have worked in the outside world, particularly in Corporate America, and know how lucky they are and how different this is. And those that haven't and think this is just how the world is.
I don't begrudge them their successes and accomplishments but it is a form of cultural isolation--even inbreeding.
All of this means there tends to be a smaller set of common social norms with the "20s set".
At the same time, I pick up new technologies, languages and frameworks as much as I ever did. Possibly more so. Just now I've been doing a lot of AngularJS. That certainly didn't exist in my 20s. While I may not have the same youthful exuberance, I have experience and can draw lessons and parallels from programming in every stage of the Web's development (from CGI scripts on).
I will say this to those planning to have children: do it while you're young and it has nothing do with fertility. Children simply take an enormous amount of energy and commitment and this is far easier to bounce back from the younger you are.
As for the rest of it? Take another comment on this thread:
> Once somebody is fully set in their ways it's almost impossible to change their mind without divine intervention
That's fairly blatant ageism but, more than that, it's from someone who only knows people like him- or herself that wants to surround themselves with the same. Like I said: commonality and shared social norms are really what's in play there.