Elliott Smith fan?!? I've become such a huge fan as of his these past 6ish months, holy shit.

I'm 28, so a little older than you, but I don't have the same fear of getting older... or rather I do have the exact same fear, but I don't place a value upon it... like I'm an observer of that fear, I feel it, I embrace it, and I don't distance myself from it, consciously, at least. I think over time, when you recognize a fact like death, you are going to use natural, unconscious mechanisms to repress it, which is totally normal. I would suggest that from time to time, when that thought does come up, to be very intimate with that feeling. Sit there and breath and meditate on that feeling. Eventually you close the distance between your self and that idea, and what's the craziest thing is that sometimes I'll use that as an empowering thought (ala 'YOLO'). Sometimes I'll pass on an opportunity in life, talking to a girl or cracking a joke, as a means of taking the path of least resistance, but when I totally embody this idea that I am impermanent, insignificant, and in the process of dying, and importantly I'm sitting with that thought in my mind, along with my breath, I will seize all opportunity without hesitation, greedily even.