AAA: Age, Ageing and Ageism

Nobody wants to get old or, god help us, die

As someone who has always had negative views of ageing and being old in general, I wasn’t planning on ever getting to this stage of life. But here I am. And of course, this isn’t just my problem. Who’s afraid of getting old? Everyone. At least in western, so called ‘advanced societies’, we’re all somewhat fearful of our eventual decrepitude and death.

From a social point of view, the reason is quite simple: in the west, the old have no assigned role and they are not exactly respected. The truly deplorable spectacle of seniors dying alone in care homes during the first year of the pandemic brought home that point, as if we needed a reminder, of just how callous we can be to the old. Maybe if you have a ton of money you will get some respect. Or if you have led an extraordinary life. But otherwise, for us ordinary old folks, it’s a dim prospect. With luck, your children and grandchildren will like you. And perhaps nature has endowed you with good genes and you have no major illnesses to contend with. That’s a big one; being healthy. But even bigger is the social role, or lack of it. I’m not talking about hobbies, or socializing with friends. I am talking about what value our society assigns to the old as a group, and there we come up a bit short. Other societies do this better than we do.

I used to joke that I was planning on emigrating to Korea in my old age. Because a close friend, who had married into a traditional Korean family, used to tell me tales of how he and his Korean wife prostated themselves before the Korean grandparents. How strictly defined roles are in traditional Korean families, and that kindly respect for parents and grandparents is a given. Indeed, his wife treated me with such exceptional kindness and respect it took my breath away. It’s not that my own family is mean to me, but this was on a different level. A kind of traditional consideration and respect that has largely disappeared from our life in the west. And this was when I was still relatively ‘young’. Being older in Korea automatically bestows on you a reverential place of honour. Lovely. Of course, with increasing westernization, this state of affairs will not last and for all I know, it’s already gone, except in remote villages where people live in traditional ways.

But I live in the west where youth is everything, and we’re all encouraged to be as young as possible. Age backwards, they shout. Just look at the industry that has sprung up around keeping us ‘forever young’. Whether it’s special diets, vitamins, gurus, meditation, even shopping: it’s all there to keep us from getting older. We must never slow down or admit that maybe we need a nap and don’t enjoy the latest Netflix gorefest. We’re certain that younger is better, always.

What we don’t know is why old people matter. Paradoxically, the more oldies we have the less we know what to do with them. We have forgotten that old age can be the beginning of wisdom, as traditionalists have always claimed. This role is clearly no longer viable in the west. However, we still need some kind of meaning to attach to old age. This need for meaning is not limited to the old, of course. It was Carl Jung himself who said that mankind cannot live without meaning. When we’re young we’re often too busy with our jobs, our families, our daily concerns to ever let the question of what it all means intrude. But it comes back with a vengeance when all that falls away, when we become old and discover that we’re neither wise nor purposeful.

That’s why I have developed a new interest in listening to those who obviously are blessed with wisdom. Among them are two mystics, who on the surface couldn’t be more different but who share fundamental insights. I’m talking about the Swiss mystic, psychologist and friend of Freud, Carl Jung, and the Indian mystic Sadhguru. If you know who they are you probably think it strange that I mention them in the same sentence. I had never thought there was any connection between them until I heard Jung reply to the question Do you believe in God. Looking straight into the camera with his brilliant eyes, he replied, I don’t believe, I know.

To me that means the god question is not about belief but about experience, and he clearly had some experience of the divine. This is what Sadhguru talks about at much greater length, but the gist is the same: belief is just belief; it’s the experience that matters. These two very different men came to the same conclusion, and it’s clear that for them, age is a time of wisdom. Jung was 84 when the the god question was asked during a long, formal interview, Face to Face, filmed in 1959. Sadhguru, the laughing one, is in his sixties, with a full white beard, roaring around North America on a motorbike, unless he happens to be in India, planting trees with his Isha foundation. Or discussing the nature of consciousness with a neuroscientist. This guy gets around.

Old age is good for these two. But for so many of us, old is not what we want to be. Certainly, when hitting eighty, I had to confront the fact that I was downright ageist.

Realizing this, I had to somehow get over my dislike of wrinkles, fatigue, forgetfulness, ill health and ill temper. Which meant learning to respect myself. Maybe even like who I am now. I am still not good at this, but I have made some progress. Nowadays, I go around telling everyone my actual age instead of considering the opposite, which is to take off a few years. I could get away with it, but what am I winning? Lying about age is not sustainable. Maybe it’s better to add a few years and get the benefit of ‘but you look so young for your age’. It’s tempting. As for pretending that you’re just as good as you were a decade or two ago, forget it. That’s the sort of lie that our culture encourages. Instead, I now search for what age has to teach me. And to my surprise, there is an upside to ageing, even for a cynic like me.

One is to slow down. Yes, slowing down is what old age supposedly is all by itself. But for impatient types like me, it means learning to slow down that overactive mind, to be less demanding and judgemental when things don’t go my way. To be a little more forgiving and empathetic with old people and me, too. Yes, it’s another kind of me-too moment, one that I never imagined in my younger, more judgmental days. It’s not easy, living this way. But I recognize it as a growth curve that is ongoing.

The other is enjoying a certain freedom. In a manner of speaking, I can be as ‘crazy’ as I like because nobody can fire me, nobody can tell me what to do or say. I can even act the crazy old gal and get away with it. My government can bully me in regard to vaccines, but that’s about it. I can speak my mind on this platform; nobody is censoring me or my subscribers. I have the time to think and write at my own speed, without the deadlines that once bedevilled my life.

And finally, there is the growing awareness that life is short, and even small things bring joy. Like the hummingbird that has discovered my big planter with trailing white blossoms. It shows up every morning, darting among the delicate flowers with lightning speed. And then it’s gone: just like life tends to be. When death is near, as it is when you hit the eighties, life becomes more meaningful. All those clever ‘transhumanists’ who want to live forever, hooked up to a microchip (yes, I’m talking to you, Elon of Musk), do not know what they’re about. It is precisely because we are mortal that life is so precious to us.

I recently talked to a 92 year old friend of mine, who told me she had signed up for the Canadian Medical Assistance In Dying protocol. I may never use it, she said, but it gives me a sense of freedom, and who knows, maybe I will die today. I think about it a lot. She was echoing Samuel Johnson, who famously said that when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

So. My mind is wonderfully concentrated during these days of Covid chaos and daily death counts. As I am watching from the sidelines, I hope that maybe, some day before I die, we’ll return to sanity and freedom. For me, writing and sometimes, painting, provides a kind of meaning. That is one thing I share with all creative souls. And I do believe creative work of any kind gives life meaning. Creativity can take many forms: helping others, learning a new skill or discovering new places and people. Whatever it is, it’s bound to be more difficult during a time of increasing insecurity and chaotic conditions. Which is why I believe that the old fashioned role of wisdom bringer might be on the way back. We clearly are in dire need of wisdom, and one thing we have learned during the pandemic, it’s not coming from our political class.

Maybe the old will eventually find a new role in our ‘new normal’. I’m imagining a very old, wise woman in conversation with young, woke activists, who can’t understand a word she is saying. Yes, this could get rather interesting…