I am very behind in my reading and after reading this very interesting article, I expected you to be flooded with comments. I am surprised at the almost silence. I have a fairly strong interest in health, read all the articles in the newspaper, watch relevant TV programmes, but rarely sit down to read a book on the subject. It is my gut feeling that what we are born with (nature) is a much more dominant influence on our lives than what we meet in the course of them (nurture) and that much of our behaviour is due to hormones, which affect our drives and emotions. But I could not defend that view with any academic back-up. Keep writing. All interesting/
Thank you, Ann. I much appreciate your response. I, too, was surprised at the low level of interest in the post. I always get some unsubscibers when I publish but this generated probably more than usual. That you liked it is encouraging as I have several such 'serious' essays lined up and will continue with them as there are some people who appreciate them. With regard to your comments on nature versus nurture, scientists tell us our outcome is 20% down to our genes and 80% our lifestyle (some figures I see are 25% and 75%). Thanks again, Ann for your continued support and encouragement.
Thanks, Patricia? Pat?, for the data on nature and nurture. I take science very seriously and am academically inclined ( I have a PhD in political theory, my husband taught economics at LSE and and my son now teaches at UCL) but I am also human and sometimes refuse to believe what science tells me. It matters to no one at all what I believe because I am not making any major decisions, but I still feel in my bones that we come out of the womb more fully formed in our personalities etc than is warranted by the data!
Meanwhile, I too write some serious pieces and this made me question whether I have ever seen you comment on anything I wrote – indeed I don’t know whether you subscribe or not. We are all busy and I can’t make any judgment on what is a good use of anyone else’s time, but I would be pleased to see you on my site. I should add that I have an atrocious memory and you may have commented plenty but I just forgot. The memory is not getting any better as I age and it started at a low point!
I just checked this out. I am subscribed to you but I don't remember seeing any posts recently in my feed. I've opted out of emails and so the many Substacks I'm subscribed to appear in my Subscibers section (the ones I subscribe to that is). I scrolled through that and nothing came up from you. However, I'll look out for your posts in future. I do remember reading a lovely article by you about your trip to Paris with your husband, which I enjoyed. I would surely have liked it, even if I didn't comment. As for memory, tell me about it!
I just did the simple thing of looking you up among my subscribers and lo and behold you not only subscribe but you have 5 stars next to your name, which means (in some very unclear way to me) that you are very active. So perhaps you read my posts, but forget that you have done so. Describes a lot of my life! I can’t speak for you. My most recent one was about fame. The one before that was an effort to define ‘fun’. The one before that was about ‘83 with potential’ which was a nice story about a restauranteur in Paris. All were well liked. Anyway, don’t worry about it.
Patricia - Thanks for this post! My husband and I are both focusing on having the best possible “third act,” and this was a great conversation-starter between us.
😊 I’m in the process of subscribing to the handful of substacks that really speak to positive aging, and I love yours. You might also like the substack I just started last week, The New Old. I think we’re very much aligned!
I’ll look it up and subscribe. I like to support others in my niche. We should be one big community, rather than lots of competitors. Great name, by the way. It’s exactly what it is. A new way of looking at being old.
Thank you so much! And I completely agree about the idea of being a community. I’m really enjoying reading different people’s perceptions and experiences; smart, conscious folks coming at this from a variety of angles.
Erika, I think this message was intended for Patricia Cusack, but sometimes Substack gets comments into a tangle and it ended up actually appearing as a comment under my comment on Pat’s site. It so happens that I write a lot about being old (I am 83, so definitely old) from a very positive perspective, so you might be interested in having a look. My current post “All my future is behind me” is a good example - the quote was a statement made by someone else to whom I was responding. And I actually do stand on my head - did so this morning in my yoga classs.
There are a lot of older women (and some older men, too) who write on Substack. I know of one woman who is 90 and a few in their 80s but quite a lot in their 70s. You have a whole new adventure checking them all out.
Quite interesting to read the facts about how hormones protect and help us. I believe women’s ancient DNA harking back to the responsibility to keep the clan alive through winters, illness and the ravages of mother nature have additionally equipped us to be the good caregivers we are in modern days. Thank you for this great essay.
I am very behind in my reading and after reading this very interesting article, I expected you to be flooded with comments. I am surprised at the almost silence. I have a fairly strong interest in health, read all the articles in the newspaper, watch relevant TV programmes, but rarely sit down to read a book on the subject. It is my gut feeling that what we are born with (nature) is a much more dominant influence on our lives than what we meet in the course of them (nurture) and that much of our behaviour is due to hormones, which affect our drives and emotions. But I could not defend that view with any academic back-up. Keep writing. All interesting/
Thank you, Ann. I much appreciate your response. I, too, was surprised at the low level of interest in the post. I always get some unsubscibers when I publish but this generated probably more than usual. That you liked it is encouraging as I have several such 'serious' essays lined up and will continue with them as there are some people who appreciate them. With regard to your comments on nature versus nurture, scientists tell us our outcome is 20% down to our genes and 80% our lifestyle (some figures I see are 25% and 75%). Thanks again, Ann for your continued support and encouragement.
Thanks, Patricia? Pat?, for the data on nature and nurture. I take science very seriously and am academically inclined ( I have a PhD in political theory, my husband taught economics at LSE and and my son now teaches at UCL) but I am also human and sometimes refuse to believe what science tells me. It matters to no one at all what I believe because I am not making any major decisions, but I still feel in my bones that we come out of the womb more fully formed in our personalities etc than is warranted by the data!
Meanwhile, I too write some serious pieces and this made me question whether I have ever seen you comment on anything I wrote – indeed I don’t know whether you subscribe or not. We are all busy and I can’t make any judgment on what is a good use of anyone else’s time, but I would be pleased to see you on my site. I should add that I have an atrocious memory and you may have commented plenty but I just forgot. The memory is not getting any better as I age and it started at a low point!
I just checked this out. I am subscribed to you but I don't remember seeing any posts recently in my feed. I've opted out of emails and so the many Substacks I'm subscribed to appear in my Subscibers section (the ones I subscribe to that is). I scrolled through that and nothing came up from you. However, I'll look out for your posts in future. I do remember reading a lovely article by you about your trip to Paris with your husband, which I enjoyed. I would surely have liked it, even if I didn't comment. As for memory, tell me about it!
I just did the simple thing of looking you up among my subscribers and lo and behold you not only subscribe but you have 5 stars next to your name, which means (in some very unclear way to me) that you are very active. So perhaps you read my posts, but forget that you have done so. Describes a lot of my life! I can’t speak for you. My most recent one was about fame. The one before that was an effort to define ‘fun’. The one before that was about ‘83 with potential’ which was a nice story about a restauranteur in Paris. All were well liked. Anyway, don’t worry about it.
I’ll look them up, Ann.
Patricia - Thanks for this post! My husband and I are both focusing on having the best possible “third act,” and this was a great conversation-starter between us.
I'm happy you enjoyed it, Erika, and that it started a discussion with your husband about the subject. :-)
😊 I’m in the process of subscribing to the handful of substacks that really speak to positive aging, and I love yours. You might also like the substack I just started last week, The New Old. I think we’re very much aligned!
I’ll look it up and subscribe. I like to support others in my niche. We should be one big community, rather than lots of competitors. Great name, by the way. It’s exactly what it is. A new way of looking at being old.
Thank you so much! And I completely agree about the idea of being a community. I’m really enjoying reading different people’s perceptions and experiences; smart, conscious folks coming at this from a variety of angles.
Yes, we all have to have our own unique perspective on it.
Erika, I think this message was intended for Patricia Cusack, but sometimes Substack gets comments into a tangle and it ended up actually appearing as a comment under my comment on Pat’s site. It so happens that I write a lot about being old (I am 83, so definitely old) from a very positive perspective, so you might be interested in having a look. My current post “All my future is behind me” is a good example - the quote was a statement made by someone else to whom I was responding. And I actually do stand on my head - did so this morning in my yoga classs.
What a happy error! 😏 I’ll definitely check out your stack -thank you! (And I’m working on a headstand in my yoga class…)
There are a lot of older women (and some older men, too) who write on Substack. I know of one woman who is 90 and a few in their 80s but quite a lot in their 70s. You have a whole new adventure checking them all out.
So I’m discovering - very fun!
Yes, indeed. Do keep working on it. My pinned post (it says START HERE) is about headstands, including a two minute video of me doing one aged 80.
Wow, you’re good! I’ve been doing yoga since 1970, but somehow never tried a headstand - so now I’m very carefully working in that direction…
Quite interesting to read the facts about how hormones protect and help us. I believe women’s ancient DNA harking back to the responsibility to keep the clan alive through winters, illness and the ravages of mother nature have additionally equipped us to be the good caregivers we are in modern days. Thank you for this great essay.
Thank you, Ginevra! I think there's much in your theory about why we women are the way we are. I'm so glad you enjoyed the essay. :-)