The ageing thing

Mandy Nolan’s wonderfully quixotic article about turning 55 and loving the ageing process took my day by storm – sort of. 

If I understand her correctly, ageing is a kind of clarion call to gratitude and acceptance – those beguiling Buddhist mantras – as well as a royal F-you to those who opine about one’s chronological status.

There’s no doubt that ageing is fascinating.

As it progresses, you become increasingly mindful of bodily and other changes, over which most of us have little or no control. Various bits begin to wear out, fall off, sag or morph into shapes and sizes that simply amaze, and occasionally horrify. 

But there’s more to ageing than personal transformation. Demographic trends around the world are telling us that populations are getting older, birth rates are declining and, in some cases, total numbers are shrinking. The general effects of all this are profound.

Age-related demarcations are being radically redrawn

The age-related demarcations of old, young, not-so-young and every stage between are being radically redrawn, and with growing ranks of ‘the elderly’ and ‘seniors’, social identities are being rethought. (That said, I’ve just looked up some synonyms for ageing, and they’re truly awful: ‘declining’, ‘crumbling’, ‘stale’, ‘slumping’!).

An obsession with wellbeing has taken hold, too. Bookstores are full of self-help books urging the over-somethings to do this or that, or become this or that, according to some ill-defined cultural script or biomedical model. There’s not a tome in sight inviting you to grow old disgracefully. 

On 10 July this year I’ll hit 70 – hopefully. In my world, ageing is a mixed bag. It’s certainly not as brilliant as Mandy seems to suggest. It brings with it the organ recitals, the increasing visits to medical personnel, the grief and sadness of losing friends and family.

And then there’s getting out of bed in the morning… And the design faults; you might have the time and inclination to do what you’d like to do, like drink, sleep all day and fornicate, but the body’s a determined refusenik.

Becoming invisible

Being older also prompts various unsought comments from people who like to remind you of exactly where you sit in the chronological order. I’ve had people refer to me as ‘young man’, or look at me with that ‘there, there dear’ countenance, and worst of all, render me and others in my age group invisible. It happens, right? It’s not necessarily deliberate. It’s stereotypes and social mores playing out according to familiar positionings when it comes to ‘the aged’.

I giggle at it all, mainly because I’ve developed a sort of anthropologian shield. But I don’t like it when I witness the same stuff aimed at people I know. I think I get most upset when witnessing someone, say, in their 80s, rendered voiceless by subtle exclusionary put downs.

I’m told that this sort of thing is mostly experienced by women. I don’t know about that. It happens to blokes too, who can also get hit with the ‘old white man’ tag. That said, there are complex historical reasons why said ‘tagging’ is experienced differently across social groups. 

How people treat you matters

If you’re utterly secure in yourself, unconcerned by what other people think, then, hey, all this bullshit might just bounce off you. But it’s often hard not to be positioned and ‘othered’ in ways that can impact your lived experience. Our identities, after all, are formed through social interactions – how people treat you matters. 

As for looking into mirrors and at photographs or, heaven forbid, seeing yourself in 3D fitting rooms, well, you take your chances. Too much self-scrutiny of the compare-and-contrast sort can lead to problems.

To prevent existential meltdown, I have taken to peering into a single mirror with subdued lighting and an abundance of self-delusion. I tell myself that the looks thing is superficial, but few in an individualistic culture like ours really buy that one, do they?

Personally, I’m eternally grateful to Keith Richards for setting the bar so low when it comes to being seventy-plus. He gives people like me hope. I’m reminded too of Daniel Klein’s observation in Travels with Epicurus that at some stage in everyone’s life there’s a reckoning with one’s face. 

Wrinkles tell a story or two

Maybe, as Mandy suggests, it’s not so much a reckoning as fascination with where life has taken us. Those wrinkles tell a story or two. It’s easy (or not) to write off ageing as a social construction, which doesn’t mean a lot when you’re being patronised.

I also find it unhelpful to think of stages of life with discrete characteristics. The idea that ageing corresponds with wisdom isn’t all that true, either. I’ve met airheads in their seventies and super bright and wise teenagers. In truth, by the time we get into our latter years we’re a smorgasbord of life experiences and personal attributes. That’s what makes ageing interesting.