The Middle-Aged Genius’s Guide to Almost Everything 48 – Turning 60
June 1, 2020
[Beginning of recorded material]
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You are 60. So, what is the transition there?
Rick Rosner: So, you wanted to talk about getting older. I just turned 60, which is not considered young in any culture. American’s like to delude themselves. I guess, it could pass as middle-aged.
Even at 60, my objectives haven’t changed, nor has my image of myself. I look in the mirror. I am wrinkly. I have grey hair. I lost some muscle. That’s partially because we’re locked down and I don’t have access to gyms.
Overall, I feel the same, do the same stuff, still want to be successful. I still behave more or less as if I have as much time left as I’ve always had, until I think about what being 60 is. Then I realize that I’ve only got 15 more years of having close to all my physical and mental resources.
Unless, medicine really takes off, which it might. But my lack of constantly being aware of being 60 versus being 40 or 20; you’d think it would be a mercy. That it is some evolved tranquilizer. So, you’re not constantly freaking out about falling apart or that your time running out.
I don’t get clues moment-to-moment that I’m falling apart. Even though, I’ve had cancer. But instead of an evolved mercy, it’s simply something that you don’t need. I would guess that there are a lot of things that we are not cognizant of on a moment-to-moment, or even hour-to-hour, basis.
That would distress us if we were constantly aware of them. We can go for long periods of time without thinking about how we’re going to be dead. We can see a science fiction movie set in the 22nd century and not spend the whole movie thinking, “I’ll be dead by then.”
But I think rather than those being evolved; the lack of awareness of these things on a moment-to-moment basis are not evolved mercies, but the more efficient explanation is that we don’t have to be aware of a lot of this stuff on a moment-to-moment basis because we don’t.
The aspects of aging that I am aware of; I can’t bench press 285 pounds anymore, which I could barely do anyway, even at my strongest. It was terrible form and bouncing it off my rib cage. I know that if I try to do deep squats, then it’ll hurt.
So, I don’t do deep squats. I am aware of that stuff, even without being aware of my overall mortality kind of the way animals, as they age, become aware through basic sensory feedback of what they can and can’t do anymore.
A 14-year-old dog who tried to act as nimble and as hyper as a 2-year-old dog might injure himself. But I think there is a general sense of your body that you get just through lots of feedback, small pain signals, or just how hard it is to lift a certain amount of weight.
This awareness is kind of local and situational, maybe not fully integrated into awareness to the point of always thinking, “I am getting weaker. This is all going to end up with me being dead.” You can be aware of your physical situation, physical abilities, and the ways you can move that are safe, without it always being tied to feelings of decrepitude.
Although, you might want to ask me in 8 years when I am more decrepit.
The end.
[End of recorded material]
Authors[1]
American Television Writer
(Updated July 25, 2019)
*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.*
According to some semi-reputable sources gathered in a listing here, Rick G. Rosner may have among America’s, North America’s, and the world’s highest measured IQs at or above 190 (S.D. 15)/196 (S.D. 16) based on several high range test performances created by Christopher Harding, Jason Betts, Paul Cooijmans, and Ronald Hoeflin. He earned 12 years of college credit in less than a year and graduated with the equivalent of 8 majors. He has received 8 Writers Guild Awards and Emmy nominations, and was titled 2013 North American Genius of the Year by The World Genius Directory with the main “Genius” listing here.
He has written for Remote Control, Crank Yankers, The Man Show, The Emmys, The Grammys, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. He worked as a bouncer, a nude art model, a roller-skating waiter, and a stripper. In a television commercial, Domino’s Pizza named him the “World’s Smartest Man.” The commercial was taken off the air after Subway sandwiches issued a cease-and-desist. He was named “Best Bouncer” in the Denver Area, Colorado, by Westwood Magazine.
Rosner spent much of the late Disco Era as an undercover high school student. In addition, he spent 25 years as a bar bouncer and American fake ID-catcher, and 25+ years as a stripper, and nearly 30 years as a writer for more than 2,500 hours of network television. Errol Morris featured Rosner in the interview series entitled First Person, where some of this history was covered by Morris. He came in second, or lost, on Jeopardy!, sued Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? over a flawed question and lost the lawsuit. He won one game and lost one game on Are You Smarter Than a Drunk Person? (He was drunk). Finally, he spent 37+ years working on a time-invariant variation of the Big Bang Theory.
Currently, Rosner sits tweeting in a bathrobe (winter) or a towel (summer). He lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, dog, and goldfish. He and his wife have a daughter. You can send him money or questions at LanceVersusRick@Gmail.Com, or a direct message via Twitter, or find him on LinkedIn, or see him on YouTube.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Founder, In-Sight Publishing
Footnotes
[1] Four format points for the session article:
- Bold text following “Scott Douglas Jacobsen:” or “Jacobsen:” is Scott Douglas Jacobsen & non-bold text following “Rick Rosner:” or “Rosner:” is Rick Rosner.
- Session article conducted, transcribed, edited, formatted, and published by Scott.
- Footnotes & in-text citations in the interview & references after the interview.
- This session article has been edited for clarity and readability.
For further information on the formatting guidelines incorporated into this document, please see the following documents:
- American Psychological Association. (2010). Citation Guide: APA. Retrieved from http://www.lib.sfu.ca/system/files/28281/APA6CitationGuideSFUv3.pdf.
- Humble, A. (n.d.). Guide to Transcribing. Retrieved from http://www.msvu.ca/site/media/msvu/Transcription%20Guide.pdf.
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Rick Rosner 