Stick around to watch the unfolding drama

Re: “Seniors’ hidden disease: depression,” March 30.

I am 80 years old and am aware of the potential for suicides by the elderly.

It is not that we are depressed, it is that we are displaced people. This is best described by L.P. Hartley: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

To the old, it seems that all of the social mores that we grew up with have been dispensed with and have not been replaced with anything acceptable.

However, all is not lost, for like all species, “oldies” must adapt to change. Indeed, we have benefited enormously during this period. My local grocery store provides fine food, even out of season, from all over the world at reasonable cost. Health care is tremendously improved.

A good used car is readily available at not a bad price. Long-distance travel is within reach and we have Google and other apps to provide us with windows on our world and the universe. Last but certainly not least, we can step outside to a sunny spring morning and all that that freely gives us.

In the end, I view social change as a continuous experiment that is not planned, nor does it have any imposed parameters; so even with a limited horizon, being as old as I am, it is kind of exciting to see how society will muddle through.

To commit suicide, when I am in reasonably good health, would deprive me of this sometimes annoying, but always interesting, unfolding drama. Roy Crichton Victoria