Why being old is wonderful
THERE was this famous actress who was always unwilling to admit her real age. One time, a reporter asked her actual age and she said, “I’m sixty five.” The reporter immediately retorted: “But Ma’m how can that be when I just asked your son his age and he says he is sixty one.” Her quick reply: “My son lives his life, and I live mine.”
In fairness, I’ve never been ashamed to reveal my exact age when people ask me. I don’t dye my hair to hide my age. I don’t soft-edge my shame of being a senior citizen by retorting to witty euphemisms, like I’m not old, I’m gold or something along that line.
Truth be told, at first, I couldn’t believe I had become a senior citizen much less a grandfather. I still get a little surprised at times to see our children look middle-aged. Where did the years go, my wife and I would often ask each other. But what can’t be denied is the gradual positive change in me: the more I advance in age, the more I have come to accept my old-ness wholeheartedly.
Perhaps it’s because of the privileged vantage point that age has now given me. Parker J. Palmer, teacher, activist, visionary, mentor and author of the book “On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old,” says: “I like being old because the view from the brink is striking, a full panorama of my life—and a bracing breeze awakens me to new ways of understanding my own past, present, and future.”
As one character of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Player Piano” says: “Out on the edge you can see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” On my 73rd year to heaven, I am like a military commander watching the battle on a high terrain having a sweeping view of what’s happening.
As a senior creative consultant of a multi-media production team, (yes, I’m still work engaged) I am surprised sometimes why I always manage to see things more broadly and clearly than my younger team cohorts. It seems that I know all the answers but nobody asks me the questions. Like a drone in the sky, I can see the entire terrain and pinpoint the little spot where our project or task would fit in the “grand scheme of things.”
When there are minor squabbles within the team I can immediately sense where it’s coming from. I can connect the dots after observing the dynamics. It’s as if I’ve already encountered their types in my younger lifetime. I can sense the potential of each person in the team and I know it’s just a matter of time before they actualize it.
I can now freely speak my mind and young people defer to me because they know I am the voice that says, “been there, done that.” At the risk of being a KJ or a balloon pricker, I temper their overzealousness and enthusiasm, helping them avoid costly mistakes, which I have seen happen so many times before.
Modesty aside, my white-haired presence in a room elicits an aura of “gravitas.” But the splendid thing about it is there’s no generational wall that stands between us. Young people don’t feel threatened or intimidated. They would seek me and would love talking to me. They’re not ashamed to tell me their most personal problems because of my mellow aged-ness. They know I have seen enough of life’s problems. To them, I am like a confessional box and a psychotherapist in one, bound by unstated confidentiality.
Maybe they see me as approachable because I don’t project the feeling that I know it all or I know better. Even with seven decades of vast and deep experience compressed in my mind, I tell them I have not learned enough, and that I am learning from them as much as they are learning from me.
“Begin again” is in fact my guiding mantra after retirement. I wake up each day, eager to meet and embrace the new and the unexpected. I am open to be filled again, mindful of what a Buddhist master said: “You are perfect as you are, and you can use some improvement.”
I am staying engaged with the world because it’s where I get my soul nourished continuously. It’s also where I can listen and learn the lessons of this life. I like to stay open to tiny epiphanies via friends, family members, stories, and ordinary experiences.
These moments help me situate the events of daily life within a vaster perspective and experience them with greater serenity and deeper understanding.
Take the video my production team is working on about textile waste. The more I get informed, the greater my understanding of zerowaste as a way of life. I deeply believe that wonderful things can come from waste and everything should be re-used for another life in this world after it has done its previous role. There are no final exits, only rebirth, repurposing, upgrading.
I never liked physics or the sciences because I was poor at math. Now in my old age, I am loving physics, especially astronomical physics. It’s only in old age that I can see the parallelism of modern physics and ancient eastern mysticism. I wouldn’t have arrived at this insight as a materially minded, restlessly distracted young man.
Being old is like putting on a pair of eyeglasses or a new lens after a cataract operation. You see things in a fresh, clearer way. You notice things you overlooked before. You get a second closer look at things you took for granted.
I am now comfortable with just looking at things without judgment, allowing me to be present with what is, enjoying the oldness of me.
Fellow passengers on the predeparture lounge, we only get old once in our lifetime. So let’s enjoy the wonderful view while it lasts.