Nader Shabahangi is a cofounder of AgeSong and noted author and guest lecturer. Join him here as he shares his thoughts on aging, the need for community, and other insights.
There is much literature today describing for us the steps necessary to age successfully. These steps mostly, if not exclusively, focus on the body, how to keep it healthy, keep it walking and moving, keep it as much as possible free from medically defined symptoms. And, of course, there is much emphasis on how to avoid the atrophying of our brain, keep if from becoming demented or cognitively impaired. A so-called healthy body is desirable to maintain, of course. However, what is the meaning of a healthy body if it does not serve a purpose, if the human being does not continue to deepen emotionally, does not continue to explore the bigger questions of and in life? Separating body and mind ignores not only the interdependency of all we are but also does not pay heed to the importance of meaning in our lives. The very expression of living an empty life refers to such a condition.
Any definition of successful aging – which equals successful living – must include our quality of life, must include meaning and purpose, an engagement with the world.
A core tenet of humanistic psychology and philosophy is the belief that human life is intrinsically significant. This meaningfulness extends to all we do and are in life. It is evident in our creative expressions, in our work, in the choices we make, in the way we keep writing and rewriting our life stories. It is also evident in the way we age, that we age. Though this seems an obvious insight to many, we need to remember only the intense cultural opposition to aging that shows itself not only in promotion of anti-, and “successful aging” campaigns but, perhaps most poignantly, in the publications by more and more members of the scientific establishment. Those writings, in the name of modern science, tend to bio-medicalize aging i.e. look at aging from a standpoint of biology only. Such a limited viewpoint can create the impression that aging is a disease ignoring the many other dimensions of human development and growth associated with growing older. This is not the place to cite the innumerous literature attesting to this conception and movement. Rather, I would like to point out the fact that not only popular culture but, increasingly also, members of our own and of other research and professional communities are proposing that aging, phrased succinctly, is something to be overcome, can be cured or fixed.
Of course, this perspective raises a host of questions that have us enter into quite sensitive and risky territory: at what point or age, do we start treating and curing aging? What do we do with those who do not respond to treatment? What about those who do not want treatment? How do we know when treatment is successful? What measures do we use: those of biology, psychology, anthropology?
From a humanistic, poetic point of view, life and aging have meaning. The very processes of life and aging cannot be separated. Without aging there is no life, without life there is no aging. As absurd as this sounds, to propose anti-aging is to propose anti-life, to believe that aging is a disease is to state that life is a disease.
Alison Shapiro in her 'Psychology Today' blog (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/healing-possibility/201002/illusions-independence) reminds us how independence is really a myth, an illusion. For, in fact, we are at all times deeply interdependent as beings. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area we all know, for example, that one simple tremor can shake-up our existence - literally - in a few moments. We especially notice how dependent we are when we fall ill, hurt ourselves, feel sad and sense the need to reach out to another. The economic crisis within which we find ourselves today is yet another reminder of how quickly our ordered world can be turned upside down by other forces.
The illusion of independence can create much pain when we get older and we need to reach out for help. For we equate such reaching out for help as a sign of weakness rather than as evidence that we are simply human. As a matter of fact, Alison makes this very amazing observation. She writes:
"I began to realize that not asking for help is, in fact, selfish. I love to help people. I do it all the time. If I don't let them help me back, I am not allowing them the same satisfaction I enjoy. You could even say that I am, in a way, disempowering them. "Proving" that their help doesn't matter. They want to help me. I don't do them any favors with my fierce independence. Learning this lesson has allowed me once and for all to see and acknowledge with my mind, my heart and my body that my life really is a part of a larger whole."
Wise words, indeed!
On the first day of March I think about the German song that children would sing in elementary school: In March the farmer begins to tend to the land and gets his horses ready to plow them... And I think of my grandfather, that German farmer, who taught me about the land, taught me to treat it kindly and with respect as it not only fed us every year but also was so beautiful to behold. The time my grandparents spent with me teaching me how to see the world through their eyes remains some of the most precious of experiences in my life. I am happy that my mother, herself a grandma, now continues the teaching with her grandchildren, noticing how she takes those long and slow walks in the park with them while their parents are both working and making ends meet. This I find invaluable an education: the slow pace and patience of our elders that can linger so much in the moment, content to be here without any longing to be somewhere else - a deep teaching in our speedy times.
Yes, now that the rain season is slowly coming to an end, it is time to tend to the land again - slowly and with patience.
We had a spirited dialogue yesterday afternoon at AgeSong at Bayside Park, Emeryville, about how we are to tackle our aging process and getting older as people and society. Especially noteworthy was our understanding of the bio-medicalization of aging, a point-of-view that looks at us humans mainly through the lens of a declining body. Such a viewpoint emphasizes, as one audience member remarked, a deficit model of the human being. In other words, we see mostly what is wrong with us rather than what we are continually changing into, what is good about us maturing and about us growing older. Another point was that as we grow older we might have to take on different roles and/or tasks which give us meaning and purpose - beyond being a grandma and/or grandpa for our grandchildren. It was also discussed that assisted-living places can provide for communal living in order to move away from the isolation and loneliness many of our elders feel.
In general, to speak of conscious aging is to speak of conscious living for as we live we age, as we age we live. 'The unreflected life is not worth living' more than one philosopher has pointed out throughout our human history. The continual questioning of what are we here for, what is our purpose and meaning, what are we called to do during our sejourn here on this planet provides a starting point for such reflection. Answers to these big questions will evolve and change and often lead to more questions - an insight that led the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke to implore us to 'learn to live in the question' - not an easy position to take in a world so driven to find answers.
"Anyone who cannot forget the past entirely and set himself down on the threshold of the moment, anyone who cannot stand, without dizziness or fear, on one single point like a victory goddess, will never know what happiness is; worse he will never do anything that makes others happy."
- Fredrich Nietzsche, Unfashionable Observations
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