There are plenty of very happy old people. I’ve watched my parents flourish as they age. My great uncle always talked about making the last year’s of your life the best years of your life. I don’t know if they were for him, but he was still dancing until the cancer took him last year at 94. Yeah we all fall apart and die, but you’re best days can easily be in your 70s or later.

The Mercator projection was great for navigating oceans, baring remain correct. There are thousands of other map projections that do a better job preserving size, shape, directions, and distances. Any projection will be a tradeoff between these.

As far as I know the Mercator projection has mostly fallen out of use in education, and I don’t think there’s any standard that requires it anywhere. So I’m not sure exactly what this is about.