The great irony of living in this civilization is that we have come to fear and despise the victory of being alive, forgetting that old age is not a punishment but a privilege – to survive the loneliness of childhood, the insecurity of youth, the chaos of middle age, in order to start the continuous creative act and continue.
This is not easy in a culture that bewitches youth, which cloaks us in an invisible cloak as life robs us of time. We can use all the help we can get – the intellectual equivalent of what Eva Perón was willing to do politically with her constitutional speech for the dignity of old age. Here's the best help I've come across in years – a form of internal state constitutional debate.
JANE ELLEN HARRISON
The first thing one has to do in this culture is to oppose youth courtship, to recalibrate the metrics of value, and no one has done it more succinctly and cleverly than Jane Ellen Harrison (September 9, 1850–April 15, 1928) – one of the most daring and underappreciated intellectuals of the last century – on his absolute wisdom in youth and old age:
People ask: “Would you like to be young again or not?” Yes, it's one of those silly questions that shouldn't be asked, because it's impossible. You can't be – the young you again. You cannot open that snowball that is you: there is no “you” outside of your life – lived. But besides, when you wake up from what one calls “the feast of life,” drunk with the wine of life, would you want to sit down again? When you're up the hill, and the view is still breaking, do you want to back down? A thousand times no! Anyone who truly wants to be young and has never lived, only thinks, only pretends.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
At the beginning of his sixties – that moment when people, especially women, begin to feel the cold shoulder of society, the small cruelty of being fired every day, the subtle expressions of nothingness – Ursula K. Le Guin (October 21, 1929–January 22, 2018) took on the question of what beauty really means as one ages, cutting through the collagen of our cultural vision to celebrate what is most beautiful about growing old: how it unites humanity, removing the marble of humanity to reveal a sculpture of the naked soul:
In older people, beauty does not come from hormones the way it does in younger people. It has to do with bones. It has to do with who you are. More obviously it has to do with what shines on those hideous faces and bodies.
[…]
There's something about me that hasn't changed, hasn't, through all the dramatic, exciting, scary, and disappointing changes my body has gone through. There is a person out there who is not just who they are, and in order to find them and know them, I have to look, look inside, look deep. Not only in space, but also in time.
Also worth reading is Le Guin's meditation on change, menopause as rebirth, and the civilizing value of the elderly.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
In the first year of his eighties, he had already won the Nobel Prize who had lived through two world wars, a polymathic philosopher and mathematician. Bertrand Russell (May 18, 1872–February 2, 1970) wrote a short essay on how to grow old, based on this life-enhancing advice:
Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until gradually the walls of the ego are reduced, and your life is more integrated into the life of the universe. Each person's existence should be like a river – small at first, slowly shrinking at its banks, and rushing past rocks and over waterfalls. Little by little the river widens, the banks recede, the water flows quietly, and finally, without a visible break, it merges into the sea, and loses each person painlessly.
HENRY MILLER
When he was eighty years old, Henry Miller (December 26, 1891–June 7, 1980) laid down everything he knew about aging and the secret to staying young at heart, his long thinking best summed up in this one short passage:
If you are healthy, if you still enjoy walking, good food (with everything prepared), if you can sleep without taking the pill first, if the birds and flowers, the mountains and the sea still inspire you, you are a very lucky person and you should kneel in the morning and night and thank the good Lord for his power to save and keep… it is not enough to go anywhere, just take each day as it comes, if you can and forget, if you can stay bitter, bitter, bitter and doubtful, man, lick it in half.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
Entering his sixties, Simone de Beauvoir (January 9, 1908–April 14, 1986) looked forward to aging in his memory role and gave passionate but unsympathetic advice, especially to himself, as the best advice to others is often:
There is only one solution if old age is not a meaningless story of our past life, and that is to continue pursuing the goals that give our existence meaning—dedication to individuals, groups or causes, social, political, intellectual or creative work… In old age we must wish to still have passions strong enough to prevent us from being accountable. Human life is beneficial as long as a person shows the value of life to others, with love, friendship, anger, compassion.
JOAN DIDION
Joan Didion (December 5, 1934–December 23, 2021) was only thirty-four years old when, thinking about the value of keeping a book, he found himself shining a sidelight on what could be the most important direction we can have as the years go by, the most important thing we can do to avoid the arrow of time from being a fatal revision and regret.
I think we are well advised to continue to agree with people we used to see, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise, they just show up without us telling us and surprise us, they come and blow their noses in the mind at 4 o'clock in the morning and want to know who left them, who betrayed them, who will make amends. We quickly forget things that we thought we would never forget. We forget love and betrayal alike, we forget what we whispered and what we shouted, we forget who we are.
[…]
So it's a good idea to keep in touch, and I think staying in touch… we keep those lines open for us.
NICK CAVE
Not long after giving a thirteen-year-old the best advice on how to grow up, Nick Caveduring his sixties, he considered two cultivating qualities that ensure that growing older is an extension rather than a diminution of life, a way of seeing the world with more flexibility and moving through it with more gentleness:
The first is humility. Humility is like understanding that the world is not divided into good and bad people, but instead is made up of all kinds of people, each broken in their own way, each caught up in an individual struggle and each with the ability to do both bad and good things. When we truly understand and accept that we are all imperfect beings, we find that we become more tolerant and accepting of the shortcomings of others and the world seems less irrational, less divided, less threatening.
Another quality is curiosity. When we look with curiosity at people who do not conform to our values, they are interesting rather than threatening. As I've grown older I've learned that the world and the people in it are incredibly interesting, and that the more you look and listen, the more interesting they become. Cultivating an inquiring mind, conversation being a key tool, improves our relationship with the world. Having a conversation with someone I might disagree with, I found, is a fun, inclusive life.
Kahlil Gibran
Although Kahlil Gibran (January 6, 1883–April 10, 1931) did not live to middle age, he was born an old soul and clearly saw the rewards of the later years of life. Her best-voiced meditation on the art of being yourself throughout the arc of life is grounded in a hard-won confidence that fortifies you against the odds:
In my youth I was the slave of the great wave and the erosion of the sea, and the prisoner of half months and full months.
Today I'm standing on the beach and I'm not getting up and I'm not going down.
PABLO CASLES
Shortly after his ninety-third birthday, the famous cellist Pablo Casals (December 29, 1876–October 22, 1973) thought about his life, finding the key to contentment by not ceasing to work with love, to live awake to ask himself:
If you continue to work and take the beauty of the world with you, you will find that age does not necessarily mean getting old. At least, not in the conventional sense. I feel more things than ever before, and for me life is becoming more interesting.
Continuing to practice and perform, Casals approached his daily routine as a microcosm of that shape:
I go to the piano, and play two preludes and fugues of Bach. I can't imagine doing it any other way. It is a kind of house blessing. But that is not its only meaning to me. It is a rediscovery of the world that I am happy to be a part of. It fills me with an awareness of the miracle of life, with a sense of the incredible wonder of being human. Music is not the same for me, never will be. Each day is something new, delicious, incredible. That's Bach, like nature, a miracle!
MUSA PALEY
In the sunset of his sixties. Grace Paley (December 11, 1922–August 22, 2007) took up the question of “the appointed time,” concluding his beautiful meditation with a parting gift of life-changing advice from his elderly father:
My father had decided to teach me how to grow old. I said OK, my children didn't think it was such a good idea. They thought, if only I knew how I could do that so easily. No, no, I said, the latest, years from now. And besides, if I get it right it might be useful to you kids in the future.
They said, Really?
My father wanted to start as soon as possible.
[…]
Please sit down, he said. Be patient. The main thing is this – when you wake up in the morning you should take your heart in your two hands. You should do this every morning.
That's a metaphor, right?
A metaphor? No, no, you can do this. In the morning, do a few small joint exercises, not too much. Then place your hands like a cup above and below the heart. Under the breast. He said wisely. It's probably easier for a man. Then speak softly, don't shout. Under your ribs, push gently. When you wake up, you should do this massage. I mean pat it, stroke it lightly, don't be shy. Almost no one will be watching. Then you must speak to your heart.
Talk? What?
Say anything, but be respectful. Say – maybe say, Heart, little heart, beat slowly but don't forget your work, blood. You can whisper again, Remember, remember.
