Lifespans?... Wizard, Muggle, & Phoenix

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 131675

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tonks" <tonks_op at y...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Magda Grantwich 
> <mgrantwich at y...> wrote:
> > The really interesting question re lifespans is, when exactly does
> > the aging process slow down?  ...edited...
 

> Tonks:
> Is it that time slows down? Maybe it speeds up. By that I mean when 
> you are young time is slow, so a year last a long, long time. But as 
> you get older the year moves faster. ... That is the only way I can 
> see the difference between Muggles and Wizards. The Muggles sense 
> time moving faster but age the same. The Wizards sense time moving 
> faster and somehow move along with it after age 80.
> Well this is almost as confusing as TT. ;-)
> 
> Tonks_op

bboyminn:

Of course, it's not time that runs fast or slow depending on your age,
it /preception/ of time or our perspective on time. At age 10, one
year is 10% of a lifetime, at age 100, a year is 1% of a lifetime, and
our preception/perspective shifts accordingly. When we are young,
there is time for everything; lazy summer days stretch out forever as
we fill them with play. When we are old, a day slips away, sometimes,
before we even know it was there. 

Now imagine how terribly fast those days must slip away for someone
who is age 150, even if they are still healthy and active. No wonder
Dumbledore never gets anything done. No wonder he never gets around to
telling Harry 'everything', the days, weeks, months, and years fly by
before he has a chance, at least to his perspective they do. That
could explain a lot.

As far as the change in the aging process, it's not an event. It's not
like at age 50, your biological clock suddenly jumps back 25 years.
You simply grow old slowly. We see people like that in real life.
People who seem physically, mentally, and socially much younger than
their actual age, and certainly much younger than other people his/her
same age. Mostly for them, it's a combination of good genetics, luck,
and a healthy active lifestyle (and lots of sex, or so I'm told).

The whole wizard's age vs muggle age is simply a means of lending
perspective to the differences. A hundred year old wizard is still a
hundred years old; a hundred year old muggle is still a hundred years
old. But in terms of health, vitatity, and mental and physical
abilities, plus the damaging deteriorating effects of age, a hundred
year old wizard is the /equivalent/ of a 59 year old muggle. 

It's like putting a dog's life in perspective by using dog years. It
simply puts a given stage of a dog life into a human perspective.
Wizard's years, simple put a wizard's age into a muggle equivalent
perspective.


Hummm... I talked a lot, but did I actually say anything?

Steve/bboyminn