On Aging – Part V Vulnerability

    

Aging is a natural part of life – for the lucky.  

In the centuries of literature have been multiple interpretations of what this means and what it implies. In earlier chapters of this set On Aging, we celebrated aging as the once and glorious time of life, a time for celebration and reflection, with deep quotes about the process, and with humor – a natural response to a natural process.  

This note reflects upon the darker side of aging, that of vulnerability.   As you age…   Few have the resources to continue on as though nothing’s happened, to regard ourselves as immune from age, to feel that old sense of immortality, to keep the unbounded optimism of youth, or to have that wonderful fellowship with our community.  Age happens.  The facts of limited engagement, diminishing strength, and attenuated energy cannot be denied.  Many are fortunate to have a kindred soul to help us, as in the 1961 British movie title, “Carry On, Regardless.”  But…   the current topic is not quite on that.

Age does not get much action in the philosophical literature, actually in any literature, partly because it is a period when the deep thinkers feel its participants are out of the game.  Death, though, gets lots of attention and continuingly so.  We like death, philosophically speaking, but not the path getting there.   We have youth, young adulthood, middle age, old age, and then death.  Old age is the weak sister in this mix getting the shorted from all.   But though age, we get wisdom, reflection, and reconciliation.   The noted theologian Karl Rahner tells us age has never been considered in his circles in any detail.  Apparently, it has not even been interesting.

Historically, old age and dying of old age was a horrific ordeal.  It was a time racked with pain, encumbered by inability, saddled as another family burden, or simply a time of neglect and loneliness.  We include the horror of dementia.  It was not a time of clarity and growth.  Can you imagine the brick-layer with a crushed foot, a miner with a herniated disk, a tailor with failing eyes, or the teamster with arthritic arms?   For these many, old age and life became a daily ordeal.  The honorees became vulnerable at the maximum.    The event of old age was uncommon. 

The sixteenth-century philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) wrote in his essay “Of Age,”

“What fondnesse is it for a man to thinke he shall die, for and through a failing and defect of strength, which extreme age draweth with it, and to propose that terme unto our life, seeing it is the rarest kind of all deaths and least in use? We only call it naturall, as if it were against nature to see a man breake his necke with a fall; to be drowned by shipwracke; to be surprised with a pestilence or pleurisie, and as if our ordinarie condition did not present these inconveniences unto us all. Let us not flatter ourselves with these fond-goodly words: a man may peradventure rather call that naturall which is generall, common, and universall. …”

[There are numerous translations Montaigne’s book.  This is an early one, and a favourite.]

He goes on to say that dying of old age is a rare, unique, and out of the normal order and therefore, less natural than the others.  Change has occurred.  Nowadays, the family’s burden is reduced by old age homes, with only occasional visitation required.  Nonetheless the inmate suffers the same loneliness, the same pain.  He/she lives a sheltered life knowing personal vulnerabilities and deterioration.   This has changed but perhaps not the state of mind with it.  Death from old age,  or complications, is now commonplace.  However, the tradition does not fade quickly.  In another example, Plato introduces the old Cephalous in his Republic, but gives him only a short contribution, perhaps to demonstrate that an advanced age is hardly relevant.

In medicine, there is of course the relatively new science of geriatrics.  This is a good start to acknowledging the condition, but devastating to the invulnerability of youth – where the norm is invincibility.   The beneficent science suggests vulnerability.

One upside of age, notwithstanding physical age, is wisdom.  Wisdom has many facets including expertise, procedural knowledge, thematic differentiation (i.e. recognition of multiple perspectives), breadth of personal knowledge, and the importance of compromise.  Responses to a study showed that wisdom increased with increasing age among Americans.  This is important.  The perspective of age allows one to see a larger world, unfettered by the day-to-day clutter of living.   This may not be so in other cultures, perhaps where wisdom is a highly valued commodity, even in youth.  Other studies show wisdom peaking in the ages 50-60 declining after the age of 75.  At 75+ years statistics are irrelevant; the variance is too high.    On the whole, while having discovered long sought wisdom, our vulnerability is sustained. 

From a chronological standpoint nothing in this note is to note.   Age is also state of mind.  I have known people who in their younger years have always been old.  Even while young they seek to be old and acted as though chronological age is their target.  Now they have become old, and they become happy… finally.  At least, it is where they wanted to be.   I’ve also known people forever young.  Everyone seems to have a preferred age. 

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Darkness.  Let’s look at the very dark side.  While the following may not apply to you or your friends, it certainly does apply, at least in part, to many.  −−  You’re aged.  You have chronic pain. You can’t work, or are worked-out, or nobody wants you on the job. You’re short on self-sustaining cash.  The government helps and makes great platitudes about it.  But yet the trust fund to help has been robbed for decades and so general tax revenue must pay.  Good thing you vote.  If not, you’d be toast.  Your family, if you have one, considers you inconvenient, a burden.  They don’t want you.  You are in a nursing home.  (Every visited one?) You need more medical attention than ever before.  Medicine is expensive; the government helps and makes the same platitudes.  Good thing you vote.  Your physical condition has substantially declined from your prime; your cognitive abilities have decreased; your vision is shot; you are often depressed; you are generally weaker than before and the creeps notice.  Your friends are in the same situation, infirmed, or have passed on.  You are very alone.  You are easy prey.  You are vulnerable and you know it.   

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We keep this piece short.
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References

Snyder, C.R., Lopez, Shane J, in the Hand Book of Positive Psychology, online at http://books.google.com/books

Igor Grossmann, Mayumi Karasawa, Satoko Izumi, Jinkyung N, Michael E. W. Varnum, Shinobu Kitayama, Richard E. Nisbett, Aging and Wisdom, Culture Matters, Psychological Science October 2012 23: 1059-1066, first published on August 28, 2012.  Online at http://pss.sagepub.com/content/23/10/1059.full.pdf+html

Rahner, K. 1980. Zum theologischen und anthropologischen Grundverständnis des Alters. In Schriften zur Theologie XV: Wissenschaft und Christlicher Glaube. Zurich: Benziger Verlag.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) Essays, Translation by John Florio (1553-1625)

For this note, I am grateful to the work of Jan Baars, A guide to humanistic studies in aging : what does it mean to grow old?, (2010), pp. 105-120 Johns Hopkins University Press.

For more on aging:

Part I: http://used-ideas.blogspot.com/2012/10/on-aging-part-i.html
Part II: http://used-ideas.blogspot.com/2012/10/on-aging-part-ii-humor.html
Part III:  http://used-ideas.blogspot.com/2012/10/on-aging-part-iii-age-and-trust.html
Part IV http://used-ideas.blogspot.com/2012/10/on-aging-part-iv-clarity.html