Four “ages” that really matter (and the one that doesn’t)
As we millennials enter (and cruise through) middle age, inevitably we start to become very aware of our ages creeping up on us. While some of us may throw big 3–0 birthday bashes and our cares to the wind, in the backs of our minds it’s still hard for us to contend with the accelerating progress of life. Progress that is supposedly measured by that ever-critical number: age.
Age can mean so many things to us:
- A marker of what life-stage we “should” be at
- A measure of how much we ought to have accomplished by now
- A way to compare ourselves to what our parents had done in their time
- A reminder of what we haven’t done or accomplished or achieved yet
- A reminder of how close we are to death (seemingly on every millennial’s doorstep, but in actuality very far away, considering a 30-year-old has been an “adult” for maybe a decade, and has maybe 5 times as many decades left!)
- And most often, a reminder of our ticking biological clocks (“You’re not getting any younger!” the saying goes, and our grandmothers mutter).
Well, we need to take a look at what age is and what we mean when we talk about age. I contend that “age” as we think of it (and the one that stresses us out so much) is meaningless and arbitrary on its own. I’d like to pick apart what exactly the information is that we’re trying to glean from someone’s “age.” So I propose that there are four other “ages” that are much more useful for conveying information about ourselves to the world.
The adage is that “Age is just a number.” Well, like it or not, it’s a number that conveys information. So if we’re going to try to convey information with numbers anyway, here are the numbers that we should really be conveying:
Solar Age (S-Age)
How many times has the Earth traveled around the sun while you’ve existed? (Some would call this “chronological age.”)
This is the one that we focus on the most, and it’s the one that tells us the least. But who can blame us? This “age” is the easiest to measure objectively, and it’s the one the government insists upon using for many of the things governments need to do (although arguably the other ages below would be better-suited). But it doesn’t really tell you a whole lot, other than the length of time you’ve managed to exist on the planet and not get eaten by predators.
Biological Age (B-Age)
How biologically developed and worn out is your body or physical form?
This one often gets conflated with solar age; and while they often track together, they can vary quite a bit. Let me propose some illustrative examples. How many times have you said to someone “Holy cow, they look great for their age!” Okay, well how “old” do they actually look? That’s one form of their biological age. So you could have an S-70 woman who’s running around teaching Jazzercise classes and doing cartwheels and regularly gets ID’ed when she tries to get a senior discount; arguably, her B-Age is closer to B-50. On the flip side, you could have an S-30 banker, who’s graying from stress and has wrinkles galore from furrowing his brow too much; his B-Age is going to be closer to B-40 or B-45.
You can also take an even more biological perspective on biological age and look at markers of aging like impacts on telomeres/histones. Doctors and governments use solar age as a stand-in for biological age. For example, one of the ideas of having a drinking age is that, below a certain biological age, alcohol can damage a young person’s health and development drastically more than when they are a (biological) adult. Of course, people age differently, so someone who is S-18 could be B-21 and able to withstand the potential damage from alcohol (let’s ignore the now-known fact that our brains are still developing into S-25 — although it’s actually B-25). Same goes with doctors. They ask your solar age as a stand-in for your biological age, because certain health conditions and factors (statistically) come into play at certain biological ages.
Life-stage Age (L-Age)
What (culturally relative) stage of life are you in right now?
Some people get married and have kids when they’re S-22. Some people go to college when they’re S-40. Some people discover partying and staying out all night when they’re S-29 (*raises hand*). Some people quit their jobs at S-31 to try to figure out what they want to do with their lives (*raises hand again*). Each of these sorts of “life stages” have a culturally-stereotypical S-Age range, which is the L-Age. So in parts of the US, people settling down and having kids are probably L-Age late-20s. Taking time to figure out what you want to do with your life? Maybe L-Age early 20s. Having a stable daily routine, knitting in the evening while watching Wheel of Fortune, and heading to bed by 8pm? L-Age early 60s. Etc. L-Age is going to be non-linear. You could be L-55 at one point, and then a few years later you could be L-30.
L-Age is a pretty loose one, and really depends on the culture you’re referencing. L-30 is going to mean very different things in Kenya, Japan, and America. It’s also going to mean very different things in Boston and Montgomery, as well as among groups of Manhattan Jews and Bronx Dominicans. So treat this one as a rough concept.
Psychological (or Emotional) Age (P-Age)
How emotionally mature are you? How skilled are you at understanding, modulating, and living with your own emotions and those of others?
Some kids are forced to “grow up fast.” That can be a sad situation, and it reflects an acceleration of their P-Age. If a child needs to play the “parent” in a household, they need to quickly mature and develop coping and capabilities to be an “adult.” Similarly, some people are “wise beyond their years.” That’s an advanced P-Age. Ever heard someone described as a “man-child” (I wonder why never a “woman-child”…)? That’s an S-40 dude who is P-17. An S-22 who really understands themselves and their inner lives and lends a kind empathetic ear to friends in need may have a psychological (emotional) age in the mid-30s.
P-Age tends to move only in one direction (increasing), but you certainly could conceive of scenarios where someone might regress, and thus decrease their P-Age. That said, in many cases, such regression is a choice to change one’s life-stage and perspective, and therefore more of a change in their L-Age.
Experiential Age (E-Age)
How much “life” have you really lived?
How much “life in your years,” rather than “years in your life”? Have you traveled the world? Are you living each day like it’s your last? Do you prefer to stay home and keep a routine? Have you lived in one house your whole life? You get the picture.
(H/t to my friend Gaia for inspiring me to add E-Age to my framework.)
Okay, I have a confession. This is not a science, and I haven’t gotten this approved by the American Society on Aging or the International Society for the Study of Time (both are real organizations!). This is a framework to help you challenge your ideas on time and aging.
We use “years you’ve been alive” (i.e., S-Age) as a heuristic, a rule of thumb, to ascertain many things about a person. It’s a blunt instrument, but it’s used by government and other sectors of society to make rough generalizations about a person when they don’t have the time to learn about someone on an individual basis. But you do have the time! On a person-to-person basis, using this heuristic can be misleading and causes us to jump to conclusions, assuming we know something about someone (e.g., what stage of their career they’re in) that may not necessarily be true. At best, these sorts of assumptions are simply inaccurate; at worst, they are judgmental and hurtful to the person you are making assumptions about.
So here’s what I recommend: instead of asking a new friend/date/coworker how old they are, try to challenge yourself to think “What is it I really want to know about this person?” And also, “Why do I want to know?” Do I want to make a snap judgment about their worthiness of my time? Try instead getting to know the person by asking them about their interests, what drives them, what gets them excited, what their favorite life experiences have been, how they view themselves, etc. Once you know them a bit, you can even explain the several “ages” above and ask them what they think their L-Age or E-Age might be!
Many times, we just want a quick and dirty way to find out how much in common we have with someone or what their goals and motivations are in their current stage of life. But that’s a very utilitarian view toward human interaction: “Is this conversation worth my time?” Instead of using the S-Age heuristic, try to actually find out how much you have in common by talking to them! No conversation is waste of time. Every conversation with another human is an opportunity to learn about someone else and yourself. You just need to make the time.
