On Aging

Many artworks suggest that the aesthetic of aging involves a slimming down, a stripping away, a sloughing off of excess and ornament in favour of deep essentials. Who has not been awed by the brilliance of Matisse’s famous cutouts created in his old age, or the unrivalled beauty of Chagall’s later works using the simplest of colours. In his New York Times review of the book, Lastingness: The Art of Old Age, Brooke Allen explained it this way: “It is a profound observation; with time and age, the act of showing becomes increasingly subordinate to the act of making, and gratification turns even further inward.”

One of the reasons for this change is that you often lose self-consciousness as you gain flexibility over your time, making it possible for a new hierarchy of values to take shape—one less concerned with ambition and achievement and more focused on the quality of the time being lived. But there is another kind of flexibility that comes with aging—the ability to accept the world as it is rather than the way you want it to be. You stop making the Sisyphean effort to push the gigantic rock up the hill all the time and just let it be. But this new-found flexibility, both of time and attitude, can bring with it its own conflicts, as you grapple with replacing old constraints with new needs.

I have this bifurcation or contradiction around flexibility. On the one hand, I have a much greater tolerance for (sense of humour about even) what happens in life. I can actually feel the acceptance, like some kind of smooth honey that goes through my body and releases in me a warm, comfortable, no-resistance high. Sometimes I interpret it negatively, as a new passivity that comes with aging, a lack of energy that makes me give up, and that view makes me sad.

But sometimes I can see it on the positive side, as huge growth and movement to another level of consciousness—reaching a deeper level of understanding that comes from the inner side of knowing, rather than the outer, intellectual side, about what the ideas of detachment and non-resistance actually point to in true experience. When I think, “Yeah—I finally get it.” It’s like that "aha" moment you get in learning a sport like skiing or golf, when what the instructor was pointing to in words finally happens to you. It’s the sweet spot of understanding. You get it, and you are struck again with wonder that the experience is never the words themselves. The words are only the bridge to get to it.

On the other hand, I am often appalled at how much more intolerant I am, at least of other people. I shudder when I see a friend who is thirty pounds overweight eating another scoop of ice cream, or hear someone repeat the same story for the umpteenth time, or have to sit silent because people’s egos won’t let them sit silent. I don’t want to take care of those who can’t remember things and are totally disorganized. (I’ve already raised my children.) I’m also intolerant about having to go places I don’t want to go or see people who cost me too much of my increasingly precious energy. I don’t want to do my duty anymore, or be so loyal that I am buried under a life of increasingly burdensome demands. (Remember, I did say at the beginning that I’m appalled at myself.) I don’t even want to be engaged in passionate busy work like cooking or gardening or fixing all the glitches in my increasing arsenal of technology that keeps expanding at a frightening exponential rate. I feel my precious life force is draining away when I’m caught in this undertow.

I’m intolerant about being forced to celebrate occasions I don’t need to celebrate, or eating bad food—or eating good food, for that matter—when I don’t want to, or having to send thank-you notes in response to thank-you notes, all out of politeness or not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings. I DON’T CARE any more about hurting someone’s feelings because I cannot for one more second spend my time doing things that aren’t life-affirming.

I suppose these paradoxical sides to my new state of tolerance are related to what people call getting a different perspective on life as you age. You don’t know exactly what they mean by that phrase. Initially, it conjures up images of wisdom and understanding and goodness that come to you with a generally all-around terrific feeling. All of these good things supposedly come to you suddenly because you’re now standing on top of this mountain and for the first time can see everything around you for what it truly is, and you realize everything is perfect.

Well—exactly what is it that you can see from the top of that mountain? Or what exactly are those people on? Because this isn’t how I feel when I talk about having a different perspective at this stage of my life. I have a different perspective all right, but it’s about time. I’m talking about the unadorned, brutal realization that I have a much shorter runway ahead of me than I have behind me. It is getting shorter and shorter, and time is moving faster and faster. I’m talking about stripping away the cotton-ball swaddling that allows our conscious minds to dance through life wrapped in a denial of death. My different perspective on life is that I’m standing on top of this mountain in full sunlight right now, looking at the naked truth: now is all there is.