What's the hardest non physical thing to maintain as you go older?

Most people are never most of those things in their lifetimes. Average, normative, pedestrian excludes most of that list. Fashionable and seductive are as close as most of us get.

Spontaneity. Motivation to change - oneself and life circumstances - or do new things seems to diminish.

alert, I hate it when I am not lert.

Maybe open-mindedness perhaps, and the ability to not let being jaded by age and disappointment keep you from new ideas or experiences.

The aroma of springtime.

Friendliness.

I honestly don't think Madonna's problem is being conceptually cutting edge--she kept focusing on that with the Madame X stuff, but the concept was not the problem.

The problem is that Madonna has always tried to sell her pop music ventures on sexiness and coolness, and you just can't do that with pop music when you're over 45. I don't think it's a matter of her being a woman, either--Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, etc. also faced vastly reduced markets as they got older, and they mostly had to keep selling their oldies or do American songbook stuff. No one wants radical new directions from pop singers who are over the hill.

Young people want to hear music by other young people, and most people are set in their pop music tastes by the time they're middle aged and keep that for the rest of their lives.

Madonna is free to do whatever she wants, but she would make the most money and garner the most interest if she did oldies or if she did a Great American songbook album (yeah, her voice is not great, but neither was Rod Stewart's). But even then she will never be relevant to young people the way she was up until "Ray of Light" (her last genuine big hit).

Being polite.

for me it's 'giving a shit'. I just rarely care anymore.

Gogetting . I will also add compassion.

Having goals for the future rather than looking backwards to the past.

Spelling, apparently.

Ditto, r8…