I was reading an article a few days ago that suggested John McCain should not be allowed to become president of the United States because he is old. I've also heard that Mats Sundin should no longer be a Maple Leaf because he's in his thirties and, therefore, too old to be of use to the team anymore. I've seen dancers and figure skaters, tennis players and actors contemplating retirement because they've reached their late twenties and can hear the clock ticking. We live in a time when a new artist of any sort--singer, writer, actor--has to be a teenager (preferably between 13 and 17, as 18 is getting a little long in the tooth) in order to warrant any kind of attention.
What the hell is wrong with us?
Even older people are trying to look younger and will do whatever it takes, including (gasp!) exercise and eating right. Of course, more people are figuring out early that you have to start doing those things when you're young, say in your early twenties, so that your face doesn't look like a road map by the time you're in your forties. If they've cheated all along and eaten all the wrong foods, stayed up every night till dawn, partied with the wrong drugs and people, and avoided exercise like it was a deadly form of torture, then there's always the nip-and-tuck version of youth and beauty.
I've got to ask though: what's wrong with having a wrinkled face or a few gray hairs? I won't even go so far as to say that they are signs of anything except getting older. But that's my point: what's wrong with getting older? It happens to all of us, and yet we treat aging as if it should be a source of shame. Well, shame on us all if that's how we feel because the fact is we are all getting older, every second, every minute, every day. It's one of those things that unites us as a race of human beings.
Recently, I've had arguments with people about the idea of mandatory retirement. It seems some people think as soon as a person (say a university professor, which was the profession under discussion) reaches an age when they can get a pension, they should just bow out gracefully and go out to pasture, go live in an old folks' home or something like that. But isn't it when a person gets into their sixties and seventies that they have accumulate the most wisdom they have ever had? We need the old to teach the young, and we need the young to be interested enough to listen and to act. Of course, the young will still make the mistakes of the young, and the old will still shake their heads. But it's another thing altogether for either group to dismiss the other as being too rebellious or irrelevant. To say an entire group of people is irrelevant because of their age (whether old or young) is a sort psychological genocide, where an entire sector of the population is wiped out and invisible. And don't tell me it doesn't compare to real genocide because, although it doesn't involve physical death, it does involve a moral, spiritual, and philosophical death. If you tell someone they don't matter because they are old, you are effectively cutting them off from your life and the lives of others who your own age. You are also sentencing yourself, and others, to an inevitable, hoary old age--one in which you don't matter, ultimately, because you only matter when you are young and shiny, new and relevant.
Mick Jagger turned 65 yesterday. I wish people would stop criticizing him for still rocking when he's a grandfather and start applauding him, unanimously for keeping the dream alive, for ignoring what he himself probably believed when he was young. The Who once sang, "Hope I die before I get old." That pretty much sums it up.
I think a lot of us would like to die before we get old. Look at how we revered John Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Kurt Cobain, Heath Ledger. All great talents who never grew old. Forever young, and all that. Even Jesus H. Christ didn't have the audacity to age before our very eyes. He died in his early thirties, before he started to not look like the portraits we all have of him in our heads. But how many people have I heard say that they won't go see Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, or Elton John in concert because, "Dude, they're old." Fine. These singers are predominately of an earlier generation. But it seems that they still have a lot to say while a lot have people have tuned out. That's no way to treat your grandfather, your mother, yourself, or your own children. Can you look at your new-born child, niece, or nephew and say, "I like you now, but when you get old, people should stop paying attention to you"? That seems wrong, and yet it's what we do to OTHER people's children. No wonder Tom Waits sang, "I don't wanna grow up." Not much fun in that.
But I've found the answer. See, I'm getting older. Surprise! (The real kicker is, so are you.) But I find that I often forget how old I am, unless I'm forced to answer the question for some government census or something like that. I've gone entire years thinking I was older than I am so that when my birthday came, I was pleasantly surprised to get to live that year of my life over again. A do-over!
But the real trick is to not fall into the trap of allowing yourself to feel old and act old, while at the same time avoiding the pitfalls of trying to be younger than you are. I don't pay much attention to birthdays, but at the same time, I've always been somewhat athletic in my own way, always keeping on the move, running, weightlifting, sports, and that sort of thing. I take care of my mind too by reading books, playing chess and Scrabble, engaging in political discussion, paying attention to what's going on in the world, engaging with the lives going on around me. When it comes to your mind, you either use it or lose it, and that doesn't start when your fifty or sixty-five. It starts when you're young.
There's a forty-one-year old swimmer from the United States in the upcoming Olympics and she wasn't expected to make the team. I'll be cheering for her when the Games begin in August. Just the same as I'll be cheering for the youngest athletes who are there for the first time. In spite of all this, my point really is that I don't care about age. I can learn something from someone of any age. When I teach university courses, I love teaching first-year because I learn from their vitality, their ability to look at everything with fresh eyes, to question everything. But I also learn that just because you're young doesn't mean you do all these things naturally. Sometimes you need to be taught, and that comes from your peers, to some extent, and from your (gulp) elders, to a larger extent. Sometimes the young are afraid, and that's okay. Sometimes they are bold and brash, and they'll break your heart by either trying too hard or not trying hard enough. Either way, they know things, and I can learn from them.
Which brings me back to where I started. Sometimes a country or a sports team needs an old warrior to bring some wisdom and dignity to the proceedings. They've been there before and they've learned some things that might be used as weapons, either offensively or defensively. Don't cast them aside, but let them fall on their own swords at their own time and place of choice. Don't force them to go gentle into that good night because, if they're smart, they won't go--not without a fight. And neither should you.
But then, you've got lots of time, right? And when you're old, you're someone else.
Right.
Oh, and I actually wouldn't vote for John McCain if I were American, but that's just a matter of politics. I don't really care if his heart's in good condition, as long as it's in the right place. I wouldn't vote for Barack Obama because he's relatively young, as long as he's relatively smart, compassionate and strategic.
The whole age debate is stupid and pointless. It's hard enough getting older without feeling like the whole world's against you. But I swear some days, it is.
I feel young today, but I can see the day coming when my words will fall on deaf ears because my hair is mostly white, my muscles aren't toned, and my voice is shaky. Heck, I already need to wear glasses more often and often have to ask people to repeat what they said. The signs are there, and they all say, "Yield!" Well, I won't be yielding any time soon. I'll need to be knocked out of the way or hauled off the stage when the time comes. Anything else is a contradiction of what I've stood for since the day I was born. Why would you work hard all your life to become something just so you can give it over to someone younger than you, who will inevitably do the same thing when their time comes? That's what we teach the young: it's all over at a certain age, so if you haven't succeeded by the time you're thirty (or forty, at most), then you should just stop trying. And if you are successful by then, well, move over because the kids want to sit in your chair.
The time is now. No matter what your age, your time is now. Don't let anyone ever tell you different. Sometimes the young are too young to know, and sometimes the old are too old to care. The former I can forgive--it's okay not to know, but it's not okay to remain intentionally ignorant. The latter I can forgive, too. They've had a lifetime of people telling them what's on the road up ahead.
Nothing but road kill.
