Rick Rosner on Aging, Nostalgia, Productivity, and Advice to His Younger Self
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Personal SubStack
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2026/06/03
Scott Douglas Jacobsen interviews Rick Rosner about aging, nostalgia, and advice to younger selves. Rosner reflects on missed academic preparation, dating opportunities, physical decline, unrealized acting ambitions, and dissatisfaction with his current productivity. He contrasts youthful strength with later-life limitations, recalls forced productivity while writing for Kimmel, and critiques excessive rest. The discussion becomes a candid meditation on time, regret, discipline, and making fuller use of life’s strongest decades.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: There have been longitudinal studies examining which decades of life people consider the most satisfying in a broad sense.
Rick Rosner: Longitudinal studies being those in which researchers repeatedly test or survey the same people across many years or decades, as you indicated.
Jacobsen: Exactly.
One of the recurring questions concerns retrospective life satisfaction. Interestingly, people often identify the decade immediately preceding their current one as their favorite.
People in their thirties frequently say their twenties were their best years. People in their forties often point to their thirties. Those in their fifties often choose their forties. The pattern continues through later life, with people in their sixties favoring their fifties, people in their seventies favoring their sixties, and so forth.
While the details vary across studies and cultures, there does seem to be a tendency for people to look back fondly on the previous stage of life. Human beings appear to be built, in part, for retrospective evaluation and reinterpretation of their experiences.
You are sixty-six now. Your birthday was on May 2.
What advice would you give to your younger self in your twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties?
Rosner: I should have been less lazy academically. I should have given myself a stronger foundation in mathematics and physics.
Jacobsen: Which decade are we talking about?
Rosner: My twenties.
Jacobsen: Anything else you would tell your twenty-year-old self?
Rosner: I probably should have had more sex.
I did not do terribly, especially considering my personality, which is somewhat spectrum-like. But today we are seeing a broader surrender to social incompetence among younger generations.
There is a global decline in fertility. Some people call it a crisis. There are many reasons for it, but one factor seems to be that many young people struggle with face-to-face social interaction. They are more isolated, more dependent on their phones, and often less willing to put in the effort that dating requires.
Yes, people meet through apps, but successful dating still requires effort. You have to make yourself presentable, develop social skills, and repeatedly put yourself in situations that may be awkward, disappointing, or uncomfortable. Many experiences are mediocre. Some are bad. A few are so disastrous that they become entertaining stories.
Speaking personally, having grown up during the 1970s, a fairly uninhibited decade, I do not think I took advantage of enough opportunities.
That idea that people always regard the previous decade as their best is partly a measure of nostalgia, but it is also a measure of resignation.
Jacobsen: It is not exactly N minus ten. It is more that people often idealize the decade immediately preceding their current one.
Rosner: Right. Whatever decade people are in, they often say the previous decade was the best.
But there is no way my fifties were my best decade. They were good for many things, certainly.
Jacobsen: We started collaborating when you were fifty-two. That is pretty remarkable.
Rosner: Yeah, it is.
But consider something simple. I laid flagstones leading up to the front door of our house. They look better than poured concrete and have a nice rustic quality.
We moved into the house in 1998, and I installed the flagstones in 1999. I was thirty-nine years old at the time. Each slab weighed roughly four hundred pounds. Somehow I managed to load those stones into my car by myself, unload them, and position them properly.
The idea of doing that today is almost inconceivable.
That represents the difference. In my thirties, I was extraordinarily strong. Compared with now, when I am much thinner, the contrast is striking. I still work out regularly, but I cannot maintain muscle mass the way I once could.
Aging changes everything. My fifties were good in many ways, but my twenties and thirties were unquestionably better for physical strength and vitality.
I also wish I had pursued more adventures.
Part of me wishes I could have experienced my twenties in the 2010s or today. For someone with my personality, dating in the 1980s required going to bars, dances, and social gatherings. I met my wife at a dance.
Today, with dating apps, I suspect I would have done quite well. I could have curated my profile, presented myself effectively, and connected with compatible people much more easily.
I also wish I had tried harder to become a professional actor.
I always found reasons not to pursue it. I did not want to deal with rejection. There were always other things demanding my attention.
Realistically, there was nothing stopping me from trying except my own hesitation. The profession involves constant rejection, and with my unusual face, I probably would have experienced plenty of it. But in terms of the actual craft of acting, I think I would have been perfectly capable.
If I could do my twenties over again, I might have had the courage to take a more serious shot at it.
I do not know. There you go.
Jacobsen: Are you satisfied with what you have done during this decade of your life so far?
Rosner: No. I have been a lazy piece of shit. Although I have been working on this book. If I actually finish the damn book, I have been too lazy, too complacent, and too distracted. No, I am not satisfied.
I have wasted a lot of time. Stephen King has a line about time being a beautiful pony. He argues that you have to capture that pony and put reins on it; otherwise, it runs wild and you waste it.
Jacobsen: Do you see value in taking appropriate rest periods during the day or throughout the week in order to make better use of that pony?
Rosner: Not really. I see rest primarily as a health requirement. You need enough sleep because disordered sleep is bad for your health.
Jacobsen: And your productivity probably declines as well.
Rosner: I do not know. There are plenty of times when I could be productive but decide to take a nap instead. I probably take the whole napping thing too far at the expense of productivity.
Jacobsen: What would you consider your most productive period?
Rosner: When I was working for Kimmel.
For years, I operated in a mode of forced productivity. Not only was I producing constantly for Kimmel, but I was also more productive outside of work in terms of writing and other projects. I was simply driven.
The job also gave me an excuse to spend most of my time working. I did not have to justify being in the office all the time because it was part of the job.
Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Rick.
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