Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive
(Post 2240260)
So...what WERE the expectations when moving here? That the folks moving here were going to leave their baggage behind? That all of a sudden irascible old people were going to turn into kindly old grandmotherly and grandfatherly types? That rocking chairs, card games in the lanai and doily-knitting were going to predominate?
It doesn't work that way. People are who they were before moving here, and that is pretty much a cross-section of America. More money, maybe, but that's not necessarily a positive when discussing personality types. But there is another factor that wasn't seen, at least to this extent and in this concentration, before people moved here, and that is summed up in the saying "as people age, they become more like themselves". So as age advances the philanthropist is apt to want to contribute even more. The quick-to-anger types are apt to develop a hair trigger. The life-of-the-party type is apt to become even more outgoing. The lounge-lizard types are apt to become even more of a pain. The loner is apt to become even more withdrawn. And so on. And unfortunately, the bullies among us may give in to their urges even more so than before.
The reason is simple. As people age, mental processes deteriorate, and as they deteriorate we gradually lose control of our emotions and how we act upon them. Bottom line: the real person that we've kept hidden more or less successfully all our lives is progressively more apt to start showing through, and not always with good results. Not all of us, or even most of us, and not necessarily in a bad way. But it DOES happen, and when you couple that with things like booze, a rocky home life, chronic pain, as well as other factors--well, sometimes the result is going to be like happened in the case being discussed here. Put simply, people have less emotional control, at times with unfortunate and even deadly results.
Post #17 mentions two murder-suicides here since 2015 (in a town that at this time has a population of 150,000, more or less). I come from a town of 25,000 and I can recall more such incidents there in roughly the same time-period--plus other crimes, against persons and property, that rarely if ever happen here. I carried a pistol there virtually every time I went out the door. Here? Not even once--though I did get my permit upon moving here. Just haven't felt the need, and this latest incident didn't change that. The Villages is by far the safest place I've lived since leaving home at age 18.
If there is one gripe I have about TV (maybe Florida in general--I'm not familiar with other settings) it is the lack of services designed to assist people with the emotional problems attendant upon advancing age. They just don't seem to exist, at least not to the extent that they're obviously needed. Maybe to develop and advertise them would go against the "healthy active senior lifestyle" thing, but to NOT develop them, and then have to deal with stuff like this, is to my mind far worse.
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