As we grow older, our senses and physical abilities tend to
become less available and less effective, but many of us take for
granted that this happens on something of a time schedule, just as
the leaves fall in the fall, and then comes winter. I suppose,
as it is December and the leaves are long gone, and as I will be 93
the day before Christmas, that I am being personal again.
I have
written before
about the tendency of people to regard me as changed since I am
over 90. Some of those closest to me are among this lot. I do
observe that I drive more carefully now, but this is because
I want to avoid any discussion with the authorities about age
if I commit some tiny infraction. I accept that eventually
time
conquers all, but I also know that individual schedules are
hard to predict.
Composers create music, and musicians give concerts well into
their late eighties. We see people of that "ripeness" completing
marathons, even if not winning them any longer. Writers and
scientists do very well at similar ages. Understanding
accumulates, I think — I was party to matters in
my fifties that I am too "smart" to touch now. The
"been there, done that" flavour of wisdom does not suffer with
the passage of time.
Some societies, as
termites
and primitive human groups, pool their learned and instinctive
behaviour, acting as the group "knows" how to act, often avoiding
pitfalls thereby (sometimes literally). This collective wisdom
is passed down from generation to generation, a group inheritance
of sorts. However, it is difficult to find examples of such complete
cooperation in our Western society, or of such attention being paid
to the knowledge of elders. In the rush of modern culture, is the
voice of the older individual still heard?
