Shoveling cow shit, grain, silage, and tossing 50kg/120lbs hay bales nearly every day growing up as kid on a farm got me started on ruining my body early in life. 12 years as a toolmaker standing on concrete 10 to 12 hours a day and lifting heavy pieces of steel, Then 15 years spent dragging 115+kg/250+lbs patients up from basements and down from upstairs bedrooms as a medic has done little to nothing for my back either.

While stretching and certain exercises could have helped greatly with that, it’s also not something that would have been available to us in our youth. It’s only been in the last two decades that kinesiology, stretching, targeted training, and other body-movement sciences have started becoming widely available. And that doesn’t help anywhere near as much after the fact.

My condolences on the current state of your meat vehicle.

Just shy of 2m tall myself, and I don’t seem to have any of your issues, even nosing into my sixth decade on this rock.

About the only thing I could complain about is the family orchard tractor, which is Chinese-made, and seems to have been designed by someone a full 45cm shorter than I am. But that’s about the only thing I have cause to complain about. Some appropriate warm-up exercises and my knees are fine even after a few hours of vigorous pedal-pumping at inappropriately pretzeled leg angles.

Knee and backpain

Some people lose the genetic lottery in this regard, true, but unless you are elderly, most people can avoid back and leg pain by exercising, stretching, and taking care of your body.

standing out in a crowd

Counterpoint: finding the person you are looking for in a crowd.

needing to slightly bend down vor everything in most standard kitchens.

If you are under the age of 35, I fully acknowledge how the deck of house ownership is stacked against you. But once you own your own home, you can… remodel. Kitchens also come in Big & Tall designs, and not all short(er) spouses mind taller countertops. The kitchen that came with my house is sized perfectly for my wife, and yet she finds the height that woukd be ideal for my height to also be more attractive for her as well.

Unless you have a passion for cramped supercars or exceed the height of most door frames… why? The ability to reach the top shelf and things placed at height is just so invaluable. And provided you take care of them, knees and hips still allow you to rummage through things on the down low.

Now, if you’re so tall that you routinely crack your forehead on door frames… yeah. I could see why. But then the question becomes, what is affecting your coordination such that it prevents you from earning millions by throwing an orange ball through a netted hoop?

“If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”

- David Frum