A pernicious belief in our culture is that getting old is a negative occurrence and that old people are inferior in various ways to the young. In some more traditional cultures, the aged are revered, believed to have achieved wisdom in their long lives. (I don’t believe that a person should be revered just because they have achieved advanced age. In my opinion, they have to show that they actually have achieved some wisdom and experience that are valuable to the whole society in order to be admired.) But many old people do not seem to have gained very much wisdom in their aging. Many, out of a concern about safety, become more rigid and narrowed in their breadth and number of activities and interests.
Being old certainly has its downsides in terms of lowered physical and cognitive ability and medical ills; and the pain that results from serious medical issues. I must admit that I am sad about negative changes in my health and cognitive abilities. I feel frustrated when I can’t remember temporarily, for example, that that thing in my sink that grinds up food stuffs is called a garbage disposer. Or that the name of my best friend’s wife is Debby. Or confuse Alzheimers with Asbergers syndrome (And I do worry at times that my forgetting certain things means that I’m developing the former!) The worst part for me of getting old and facing the fact of my mortality is not being in control of it. I can do things to try to ward off my death--eating right, exercising, doing things I enjoy and find meaningful, spending time with friends and family. One of the activities that gives my life meaning is writing these blog articles. But, in the last analysis, I will die some day and fairly soon. I can't keep that from happening. And another very painful aspect of my aging is the loss of many friends who have died in the past several years: 2 fellow gestalt therapists, David Gorton and Bob Resnick whom I knew in Los Angeles for over 40 years; another psychologist, Tom Greening, an office mate and past editor of the J. of Humanistic Psychologist; Jackie McCandless, a psychiatrist whom I met at UCLA when she was a resident and I was a professor there, with whom I ran a therapy group and was the one who recommended I go into private practice; an ex-wife and rolfer; and, most recently, Steve Zahm, a very loving and beloved Gestlt therapist and teacher who, along with his wife, Eva Gold, ran a Gestalt training institute in Portland for many years. I have had to do quite a bit of grieving at the loss of these extraordinary people.
But there are some potential advantages in getting old, and ways to make it meaningful. I hope to empower those who read these articles to see that, despite their age and degree of enfeeblement, they are still able to do many things to enjoy their lives and to find meaning in them. I also hope to help those therapists who work with the elderly to be more effective with them.
One possibility in aging is that one can now devote themselves to growth and self- expansion, especially if they now have the time to read the books they may have wanted to read earlier in their lives but did not have the time or energy to do so. They can become involved in political causes if they are concerned about issues such as climate change or the political situation in our country. Or learn a foreign language; research has shown that this activity can stave off cognitive decline. If they have the energy and health for travel, they can visit areas of the world and friends and relatives they may not have had the time or freedom for earlier in their lives.