Youth is relative. Your much younger(maybe) than any 99 year olds.

Many UFC fighters don't know when to quit. They carry on much longer than they should. The latest example being the Legendary Anderson Silva. In his youth he was literally untouchable. But in his old age, he kept getting knocked out. In the end the UFC had to cut him from the roster, and now he is trying to sign up with other agents.

Khabib Nurmagomedov just retired in his prime, undefeated. UFC lightweight champion, the toughest devision. He conquered it and made it look easy. He could carry on fighting, but instead he wants to start a sheep farm.

These two fighters are good examples for the two types of people, when it comes to aging. Some people want to be younger than they are. And other people are happy with their lives and look forward to the next chapter.

I was super excited when I got my first grey hair. It was in my beard, so I stopped trimming it. I told everyone that now I am wise. I look forward to growing old.

Looking back, I do feel physically limited, compared to my hay day. But I am much more experienced and knowledgeable. And now I have about 10 greys, I'm 10 times wiser. I prefer to be thankful for the youth I had, and thankful for every day that comes next.

I don't think the question you ask, is related all that closely to youth. Wanting to be fit and healthy is perfectly normal. But if you are unhappy when you reach your limits, then yes I think that is unreasonable.

Its not selfish at all. Life wants to keep living. After a time, you start to decay and break down. That's aging. Nothing wrong with not wanting to decay.

It isn't 'selfish' to want to be young (again) but you still are young (unless there is something you are not telling us). So make the most of it.

People do age at different rates. Still, at 32 you are just a few years past full adult development of your brain (which is finished, give or take 15 minutes, around age 25. 32? Many people hit their peak around 40, and then plateau for maybe 15 years. At 75, I'm certainly on the decline physically, but mentally I feel as sharp as ever. Anthony Fauci is 80 and is still going strong.

A chronic lack of quality sleep is a real hazard to health; if you aren't sleeping well, start looking for an explanation and then do something about it. If an internet search, or library search yields no good guidance for you, or if your best efforts don't lead to quality sleep, then check out a sleep clinic. You might have sleep apnea (a breathing problem you wouldn't necessarily be aware of) or you might be practicing very bad sleep hygiene.

Genes aside, we can at least slow aging down by a) not smoking b) drinking in moderation c) eating a healthy diet d) regular exercise appropriate to your age (for a 32 year old, everything else being equal, you might want to do daily moderate exercise) f) sleep 8 hours a night g) live a life that you find enjoyable, meaningful, and satisfying -- whatever that is for you.

Even if you do all that and still have vigorous sex at 100, you are still going to die at some point. Once you become "old", you might start looking forward to dying as the fitting end of a good life.

is it selfish to want to be young again? — TiredThinker

In the sense that it's concerned with yourself, yes, but "selfish" is only a bad thing is it comes at the expense of others, when it means like "greedy", and wanting to restore youth is definitely not that. "Youth" in this context is basically synonymous with "health", so you're basically asking "is it greedy to want to be healthy?" No, definitely not.

It is not really any longer "my time" — TiredThinker

Times don't belong to anyone in particular. Any time that you're alive is "your time" as much as anyone else's, because it's a time that you're in.

but at the same time feels like I never had my time — TiredThinker

If this means what it sounds like to me, then I sympathize a lot. I'm not sure if you're currently 32 or somewhere older than that, but for reference I'm 38. As a teen I expected that as an adult I would go to college, get a good-paying job out of college, buy a house, get married, and live happily ever after by around 30. It ended up taking me until 25 to graduate college because of needing to work to support myself through it, then took another 5 years after that to get my career to a point that I could afford to stop renting just a bedroom in a house full of strangers, which was still just a tiny mobile home not big enough for two people, which is why I'm still not married despite being 8 years into a relationship now (and which was a major contributing factor to the end of a previous 4 year relationship).

So I feel like I'm still waiting for my "adult life" proper to begin... and yet, at the same time, approaching 40, it feels like I'm now well past the period where I would expect to be living the adventure of young adulthood that I looked forward to as a kid. Like I'm simultaneously too "young" in terms of life progress, I'm still "just a kid"... but at the same time I'm just about to head over the hill. Both too young and too old... too little, too late. Feels like the story of my life really.

From what I've read, statistically, this is just the fate of most of my (our?) generation. We just don't get to have the kind of adult economic independence that our parents did, so either we're stupid enough to try to take on adult responsibilities like home ownership, marriage, family, etc, even though we can't afford to, and fuck ourselves over in the process... or else we're smart about that fact, and end up spending our whole lives waiting to be in a position that it's responsible to do those things.

:up:

But is it selfish to want to be young again? — TiredThinker

"To live, is to continually remove something that wants to die.
To live is to be cruel and unforgiving with everything that becomes weak and old in us." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"To live is to struggle against yourself" - Gus Lamarch

For context I am 40 now and after 35 started getting regular headaches and a retina disease. I jog half the days of the week and used to go to the gym regularly before Covid-19. I am maybe 3lbs overweight, some weeks normal. My energy and concentration are poor. And sleep quality as I said is poor after 25. Particularly after 30.

The antiaging research that interests me is NAD+, cellular senescence, stem cells, gene therapy, blood plasma proteins, and fasting.

I guess I am asking if it is selfish because the world may already be over populated and the resources are limited and I don't know if I have as much right to them as those that are young for the first time.

I think that it is possible that your underlying feeling that you are selfish and undeserving may be contributing to your ongoing health problems, especially sleep. Perhaps you need to reframe your thinking rather than thinking about gene therapy etc. I would say that you are entitled to the resources as much as anyone else.

One thing that I found helped me a lot when I was going through some really awful existential dread about death and the end of the universe etc back in 2019 was to remind myself that mood is an important contributing factor to health and longevity, so not thinking about those things that make me feel awful is actually doing something to help fix the problem. Taking your mind off it isn't irresponsibly avoiding the problem, it's actually part of making it better.

Perhaps. But these big questions interest me. If I could be sure we exist after death and things actually improve than I wouldn't concern myself as much with new medical research. In particular gene therapy to force my retina to regenerate, a skill we mammals generally lack. It has so many implications for even young people with horrible diseases and disorders to live a normal life.

In the absence of additional details about you, I'd recommend reconsidering the idea that it's no longer "your time." What makes you say that? Your time for what? I'm talking out of my ass here because I'm 22, but to me it seems like many people max out-- in terms of intellect/character/whatever-- between the ages of, say, 40 and 60. I've always looked forward to that stage.

If you're talking more societal issues and the devaluation of certain classes of people, there's certainly a discussion to be had there.

EDIT: I see you mentioned health issues. No, nothing selfish about what you want at all. I mean, if it came down specifically to treating you, as an individual, for your ailments vs treating a younger person for their ailments, maybe considering "selfishness" would come into play. But even then the problem wouldn't be you. No reasonable person would fault you for not wanting to suffer.