More of us are living more years than our ancestors did. That’s often presented as a problem. How will we afford all the pensions? How will we afford to pay for the extra care these millions of additional frail people will need? How will we afford to pay for the extra years of drugs they’ll be prescribed?
And what about respect for the elderly? Do we see this increase in the numbers of older people as providing us with unique resources of knowledge, wisdom, care, love, support?
How refreshing to read the words of Herman Hesse on this subject –
Aging is far from being only a process of reducing, wilting and fading. Old age, like every other stage of life has its own merits, its own magic, its own wisdom, its own sorrow.
Whoever becomes old consciously, can observe that in spite of diminishing powers and potencies, every ear brings an increase and an enhancement in the infinite web of relations and connections.
Oh, I so understand that last point in particular. With my now five grandchildren my web of relations and connections has been enhanced amazingly. And over the last few years, with teaching in different countries, and writing this blog, I’ve made many, many new friends and connections, meeting such different people who so often shift my perspectives and make my world a bigger, yet smaller place!
Here’s more from Hesse on the benefits of aging –
…increased independence from the judgement of others, less vulnerability to compulsion and more undisturbed reverence before the eternal
You should have been with me this morning when one of my very sprightly, beautifully dressed, 86 year old patients told me as I asked her if she was ok to climb the staircase with me to my consulting room, “that’s a beautiful, straight bannister on this staircase. Maybe I’ll slide down it on my way out!” ……made my day!
Heroes Not Zombies 
My 86 year-old father played tennis every other day until last year and still does calisthenics and rides an exercise bike. He’s in amazing shape — I think exercise can even stave off some of that deterioration…
Sigh….aging is rough..but you also get to a point where you don’t mind not caring what anyone else thinks anymore.
I think your anecdote might illustrate that while the concept of old age remains relatively fixed, the age at which people consider themselves to have reached what they consider to be an “old” age is being pushed further back.
This is a cultural shift which our legislative and economic framework is only starting to catch up with. An increasing life expectancy and increasingly staved off “terminal decline” will inevitably mean an older retirement age, fewer financial perks in older years (viz. the Chancellor’s freezing of ARAs yesterday and the already extant reduction in available private annuity rates, etc, etc.), and eventually the possibilty of second careers, etc.
Will this all aid the personal growth Hesse describes, or just postpone it by giving people more life distractions, I wonder? 🙂