Hell no. I'm 52 and I'm always in search of new foods I've never tried, new places I've never visited and new music I've never heard.

The first big step in the slog to the grave is living in the past and refusing to experience new things.

That is a difficult one to answer. Where it is that I sometimes do not like to change, I guess that might be sort of a comfort zone.

But on the other hand I love more than anything than to learn something new. I love to be dumbfounded by some some new findings, or empical evedence that skews me into something I never before thought of.
So I sometimes covet new ideas of thought. I've had that since I was young, and I really hope that never goes away.

Tell me if you know a mature someone that says "kids today are lazy", or "I think the older cars were much better than the new ones", or "I'm never getting a smart phone, who needs them?" You take a business management class the first day they ask you, "what is every person afraid of?". The answer is change. Next question, "what does every business (relationship,job,family) need to survive?" Again, change.

Off the top of my head - As we get older, we have more experience, so when presented with new tastes or ideas, we believe we have more knowledge with which to refute or repeal it? As a result, it appears that one gets more stubborn with age? (Yes, yes - a generalization, but my attempt to explain why that perception might be there.)

But it need not be that way at all. I enjoy exploring new tastes, new ideas. I like to have my (pre)conceptions challenged. I figure that as a result of the challenge, I will have corrected errors in my thinking - either by reinforcing the original idea, or perhaps modifying it based on new information.

That depends entirely on the person. At age 81, I am still seeking positive social, scientific, political, and intellectual change.

Change is inevitable.
Adapt or die.
That said, I see no reason to change what I like to eat, or the types of music I listen to.
There's enough other stuff going on that I must adapt to. It isn't necessary for me to
change everything, all the time.

I have made an effort to keep my taste buds 'fresh' but keeping yourself open as you age is a huge challenge

Rigidity increasing with age is a pretty well-understood phenomenon. I think it's a natural evolution as you tend to have more of a "been there, done that, got the tee shirt" response to inputs you would once have seen as novel; see the world Moving On from the values and priorities and illusions you bonded with as a youth; and simply don't recognize society anymore.

For example I see the America I'm apparently going to die in being an empty shadow of the one I (thought I) was born into, although a lot of it is really just stripping away illusory beliefs about my country of birth. For example I want to think we suddenly lost some sense of civility and inclusiveness that probably was not really there, so much as we never got over our insularity, just drove it underground for a time, and now we're free to express it. Regardless, it tends to make me avoidant and depressed, to turn away and give up. But this is, when you think about it, really about seeing things more as they are and less as I wanted / wished them to be. It's a side effect of being more experienced and self-aware.

But, "we must imagine Sysyphus happy", as Camus said ... life may be absurd, but the attempt to overcome the absurdity is the "point".

The only thing certain is change. I think we lose the energy to deal with changes and that's what makes us so resistant. I've learned so much new software as I've moved from job to job, and most of that knowledge is completely useless now. Its stuff like that making me tired of change. No I don't want to upgrade a damn thing, everything I've got is working fine, why do we have to keep tweaking everything constantly?

Sometimes. Perhaps it's human nature. Change is uncertain.