Wiser, and not yet irrelevant
New Plymouth writer David Hill challenges a few common myths about Old Flatulents.
The evidence is overwhelming. The clincher came in our local CBD. A group of teenage boys in out-of-town sports uniforms were gazing around, clearly lost. One murmured, ‘‘Let’s ask that old guy over there.’’ I felt a bit disappointed they didn’t ask me instead. Then they did.
How could I have felt surprised? My 9th decade is still over the horizon, but it’s starting to gleam like a slowly-rising sun. Stand up right now the person who said ‘‘slowly-setting’’.
But it’s always a surprise to realise how others see you. That’s others as in those whose hair colour doesn’t yet match their denture colour.
There’s a lot of us setting suns around these days. GoldCard holders compose nearly 20 per cent of NZ’s population, and our numbers are rising as you read this sentence.
In spite of which, we’re still misunderstood. Nothing remarkable there: every age-group has its misconceptions about other groups. But now that those visiting teenagers (and I hope they lost their game by a crushing margin) have confirmed I’m a fully paidup Old Flatulent, may I challenge a few common myths about our lot?
We don’t just want to be safe
Younger people are obsessed with keeping their parents/grandparents out of harm’s way. That covers everything from medical bracelets through ladders to the right-to-die bill. Of course we want appropriate degrees of safety and reassurance, but much more than that, we want freedom. Freedom to take risks, choose dubious options, do things that make our kids gulp. ‘‘Give me liberty or give me death’’ has a special relevance when applied to the old.
We’re not unhappy
Hardly any of my peers resent being old. It’s novel. It’s interesting. It provides more humour than any years since puberty. Yes, we can feel despondent about discomfort and illness, isolation and apparent irrelevance. But old age itself doesn’t equate with gloom. Apparently, the unhappiest years of one’s life are the early 40s. Go figure.
We’re not grumpy
We simply value honesty. When the checkout operator intones, ‘‘So how’s your day been?’’ while staring straight past us, we feel it’s entirely appropriate to reply, ‘‘I’ve got a lump.’’
We’re not physically slow
It’s just that the messages from brain to limbs have so many friends to visit on the way.
We’re not forgetful, either
We merely have a bigger data bank to scroll through.
We’re not oblivious to fashion
Rather, we prefer comfort. Anyway, do you really want to see a pair of 77-year-old knees peeking through distressed jeans?
We’re not prudes
But we do know, directly or vicariously, that sex is potent as well as beautiful. It can damage as well as transfigure; can resonate far beyond one night, and sometimes resonate disastrously. It deserves care.
We’re not deaf
It’s more that we like you to pronounce your consonants as well as your vowels.
We’re not a financial drain on the nation
We provide a quarter of NZ’s volunteers. Our tax give exceeds our benefit take. And we don’t necessarily prevent young people from getting jobs.
We don’t oppose change
Indeed, we’ve had more experience of handling it than you have. We’ve also been around long enough to have seen certain changes before, and to know they didn’t work that time, either.
We’re not set in our routines
(Sub-set of item above.) But more days are challenges for us, and one way you deal with challenges is to plan a way through them. If we’re having such a day, and working through the plan we’ve made to cope with it, and if that plan is suddenly torpedoed by something new and/or different, then we need time to recalibrate.
We’re not whingers
Years back, I asked a much older friend ‘‘How are you, Jack?’’ He replied ‘‘Good, apart from the usual aches and pains’’. I was 50 then, and wondered what on earth he meant. Now I know. And it impresses me, it amazes me, that so few of my contemporaries ever mention the physical discomforts that attend them. If it’s any consolation to today’s 50-year-olds, you do learn to live with it – quite contentedly.
We’re not irrelevant
Somehow in the last few generations, the word ‘‘elder’’, as in mature and experienced, gave way to ‘‘old’’, as in unaware and out of touch. Sometimes it applies. Often it doesn’t. We may not have the information that sprightly youngsters of 49 have at their digitised fingertips, but if we’re lucky, we can occasionally offer something else. Let’s call it perspective. Oh hell, let’s call it wisdom. UK research suggests that in areas requiring accumulated skill and knowledge, such as dispute settlement and language skills, people become more competent over time. I rest my case – or I would if I could remember where I put it.
So there we are. And there you will be, with disconcerting speed. We look forward to welcoming you. In the meantime, should you or your teenage sons ever get lost in a strange CBD, we’re probably the ones who can direct you. We’re also the ones who have the time to guide you there.