The old joke is that aging is punishment for a crime you didn't commit, but there are rewards as well.

The argument about “my eight lifetimes” can be summarized this way: in your life you will undergo roughly eight major transformations. That is, you get eight “lifetimes” during which you become a new and different person. If you’re reading this blog, chances are that you’re already on your sixth or seventh. This is not to say you have one foot in the grave: having an entire lifetime ahead of you is still a big deal. For me, a 25-year-old, the two remaining lifetimes are the transformation from a 20-something-year-old to a middle aged man, and then from middle age to an old man. Both of those time periods are a big deal, and each of them contains plenty of living to be done. I just imagine that the time period between age 6 and age 12 was a similarly big deal.

This isn't the heart of the linked post. It's an aside of sorts, throat clearing before the main topic is discussed, and you may enjoy reading it. What struck me about the passage is how naive it is and yet how completely understandable for a 25 year old to have no clue whatsoever about what happens as you age. Middle age, and old age are unknown foreign lands where there be dragons, or something.