How to Age - Anne Karpf
Ageing need not be seen as declining but enriching.
We grow old, not shrink old.
There is a third way between fear and denial. It sees ageing as part of a lifelong process, an opportunity to develop. A long life signals privilege of good genes, sensible youthful decisions, serendipity.
Ageing involves mourning passing loved ones and passing opportunities - but it is a managed sadness, it is a sadness under control, and control is dignity, but those who can’t control still deserve respect for being human, and assistance as we would want for ourselves to maintain that dignity, that deserving of respect: a clean dress, combed hair, mouth wiped.
It is a PRAGMATIC OPTIMISM.
Ageing accentuates our individuality, idiosyncrasies and personality whilst youth can be a source of anxiety for conforming and homogeneity.
Age makes people of certain socio-economic factors have less in common e.g. a 70 year old English, well-to-do man is more likely to find commonality with a 30 year old of similar background, than an impoverished sub-Saharan 70 year old woman.
We can continue to grow so long as we continue to breathe.
Some aspects of self, like spiritual growth, require time to develop.
We must distinguish between resisting ageism and resisting age itself. We are “aged by culture“ (Gillette). Becoming poorer with age is not inevitable. It is a result of external policies. It can be resisted by all of us whatever our age.
Our former age is from eight, 18, 28, 38, 48 et cetera: all those former ages aren’t eviscerated by age but are enfolded inside them, like the rings in a tree trunk.
Age does not expunge all traces of our prior identity.
Look up Maggie Kuhn, American Gray Panther movement
Aging is not a sickness.
We are a mulch of personal but also social and cultural memories.
We should find pride and satisfaction in aging like parents take delight in watching their children develop.
“Today is my day, so will tomorrow be”.
You are a bottle of wine…you improve with age…(but wine becomes vinegar…but vinegar is still useful…)
- in work
- through relationships
- interests
- making social contribution
- getting to know themselves
- making genuine contact with other people
- developing the capacity to love – whether people, ideas or experiences.
These are essentially internal resources that can be cultivated and drawn upon throughout life. If we think about our entire lifespan, scary though this is, it's easier to see what resources are necessary for the journey and begin to understand how to husband them.
Ageing is a First World luxury, we now see it is as a burden. Compare this to poorer parts of the world. Be aware of the roots of your thoughts.
Those who age best, travel the lightest.
We have to “work through” not “act out” past pains of lost opportunities and bad decisions. We must come to an accommodation with them, allowing them to change, and to restore vitality. These past bad memories become like festering sores, untreated, unhealed, constantly picked. Scars are fine. Open wounds are not.
To age is to live, to live is to age. To be “anti-age” (as some creams proclaim) is to be “anti-life”. The only way forward is through it, with pleasure, embracing the hardships as necessary to growth and development - to sin, to repent; to err, to repair - rubbish can be restored…
Vik Muniz’s creation with Brazilian rubbish collectors
Celebrity (with some exceptions for women) and cultural power can trump age e.g. Paul McCartney when it comes to negative stereotypes of the old.
Our culture teaches us how to be old. Old Chinese people with less gerontophobia have better memories that old Americans.
Time is not a thief.
Ageing is adding.
The midlife crisis – if indeed such a thing exists – could be said to be a crisis of meaning Jung