I remember experiencing the world much more vividly when I was a little boy.
I would step outside on an autumn evening and feel joy as the cool breeze rustled the leaves and caressed my skin. In the summers, I would listen to the orchestra of insects buzzing around me. I would waddle out of the cold swimming pool and the most wonderful shiver would cascade out of me as I peed in the bathroom. In the winters, I would get mesmerized by the simple sound of my boots crunching the snow under me.
These were not experiences that I actively sought out. They just happened. I did not need to stop to smell the figurative roses, the roses themselves would stop me in my tracks.
As I got older, I started feeling less and less and thinking more and more.
I’ve tried meditation, recreation, vacation, resignation, and medication. Some of these things have helped but I am still left wondering… is this a side effect of getting older? Or is there something wrong with me?
I’m sure it also has something to do with that when you get older, you’ve had those experiences many more times than as a child. They just don’t feel that specia anymore.l
I think a big part of it is that when we are young, all of these are new experiences to us. And as such, they carry a lot more emotion and stimulation.
As an adult, you’ve experienced many things. To some degree, your brain is likely acustomed to it.
Something that helps is breaking out of your routines and experiencing new things. I’ve heard our neural pathways described as the grooves that form on a hill when sledding. When you first slide down the hill, you’re making brand new grooves. Each trip is different and unique. But over time, trails get established and you end up using the same worn trails over and over.
Experiencing new, bespoke things is like breaking out of the trails and making a new one.
At least, that’s my understanding! I’m not a proffessional, just someone who can relate to what you’re describing :)
Well, the older you get the more experiences you have. Not everything is going to feel new when you’ve been through it a few decades.
I’d say it’s normal.
Part of it is looking back through rose-colored glasses. Sure, there was joy, but there was that time you stubbed your toe and you got so emotionally disregulated that you cried for an hour, or the time your parents put the wrong color socks on you and you screamed a bad word at them and refused to leave the house, or… etc.
You learned to regulate your emotions. That’s mostly a good thing, but it also means that you learn to control yourself in the moment, and you don’t tend to lose yourself in joy like you did as a child.
And that’s OK. I enjoy things differently now, than I did then. Back then, when I played with a toy car, it gave me great joy but if something broke, or things didn’t go my way, I also suffered uncontrollable anger and frustration. Today, when I take my TRX-4 trail truck out on the trails, I feel a different kind of joy that is mixed with intellectual understanding of the engineering of the machine, an appreciation of the beauty of the natural world that I didn’t have as a child, etc. And if something breaks, it’s not an emotional thing any more. I know I can fix it, I have the ability and the desire.
Heck, it’s enjoyable to break things, take them apart, and fix them again. That certainly wasn’t true when I was 6.
And if something breaks, it’s not an emotional thing any more. I know I can fix it, I have the ability and the desire.
Fixing stuff breaking is honestly half the fun. Weird love hate thing.
I think I get it what you mean… you are feeling like you are watching a tv show in your perspective, like you are not the one who acts, you are just watching? One of my friemds had a similar experience, please tell me if I understand it the wrong way.
That’s called having a derealization/depersonalisation crisis, not getting older lol.
Had that when I was 18, tell your friend to get checked
Thanks for your help I’ll definately tell him
