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Conceptions of Age

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Conceptions of Age
The topics I chose to discuss are introduced in Chapter 1, the conceptions of age. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” –Satchel Paige, a quotation from the book immediately caught my attention to the reading. I love this quote because I have always thought about that. I am 20 years YOUNG but when asked, I always mention that I am 40 years old in my mind. I have always wondered if the way we measure age was different in different cultures. I am sure there are many cultures that do not measure age chronologically. I read in a textbook that in China they have their birthdays the first day of the year that they were born, and most don’t even celebrate it. That was interesting to me because it is such a huge celebration to have birthdays in our culture. But growing up as a Jehovah Witness I never celebrated my birthdays, and so age was never a significant thing in my life.

In the book it distinguishes the ways we can measure age. Chronological age is the number of years that have passed since birth. This is the most common form of age in our culture. Biological age is a person’s age in regards to their biological health. This relates to the health or capacities of one’s vital organs. Finding one’s biological age can help identify their life expectancy; the lower the biological age the longer they are expected to live, regardless of their chronological age. Psychological age is related to individuals’ adaptive capacities. Those who continue to learn, think clearly, are organized, etc. are considered to have adaptive behaviors. What surprised me in the text is that those who have a personality trait of consciousness have a lower mortality rate. I wonder why that is, maybe the stress of being conscious? The last way of conceptualizing age, mentioned in the book, is social age. This refers to the quality of social relationships individuals have with others. It mentioned, and I agree that, individuals live longer the happier they are within their relationships with others.

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