What is Our Aged Perspective?
When I was a youth we felt old people
were traditionalist, conservative and “old fashion”. We felt they
lived in the past and made up their ideas by outdated thinking that
was not very relevant for us today.
Today, half a century later, I am there
where we used to think of older people like that. How do we
think about our “out datedness” when possibly some youth look at
us the way we used to think of our elders? So much about the
different perspective on things depends on our age and stage in life.
It is likely a frequent
misunderstanding of how we older persons think and why we think as we
do. We do not think only in the framework of another age of the
past. We actually form our present ideas and values based on an
accumulation of all our experiences including the present. We do not
base our lives only on 15, 30, or 45 years’ experience. We may have
7 decades of experience on which to base on all ideas and of feelings
about reality and life. We can draw on things we learned say, 50
years ago, as well as all we learned and experienced in the decades
since. So certainly some things are based on “ancient” knowledge
and ideas but they are modified and expanded by events and
experiences since that give us a much larger perspective. So instead
of taking a stance on a past, short perspective, we base positions on
the longer experience in which we have accumulated a lot as we
participate in life with the next generations. Constantly we evaluate
the present by this long-range perspective. Thus we are not impressed
by “conventional wisdom”. This is very true when we think
politics, economics, and God’s will for our lives as well as about
everything else. It means that we make judgments and opinions based
not only on current and popular thought, but also on all of our past
as it informs the present.
It can be said that aged people may
have a special mentality which only they can really appreciate. It is
an interesting experience and matter for us to blend the past into
the present. We do this in various ways as a hobby and style of
communication. Personally as a couple, we constantly resurrect verbal
expressions and music from our distant past and apply them to present
situations. Used in German, these often archaic expressions are an
interesting form of humor that constantly spring up in our casual
conversation. Often we don’t use the contemporary idiom or
denotative speech, but we use old particular expressions in new and
ways unrelated to their original setting. My father-in-law used to
say about our deacon that when he was young his mother said about
him, “Davie is so stubborn-headed”, but stubborn headed hardly
has the flavor of the German word, and is still funny to us. Another
source of bringing ideas from the past is recalling words from songs
that we learned years ago and using them to express our feelings of
the present. When I am little depressed, I may moan, “O lonesome
me”, from Elvis Presley, of almost 50 years ago. In fact in the
past few weeks, I have collected 25 such allusions and recorded them.
So frequently we blend so much of our past into the present to give a
deep or light-hearted approach to present situations, however we feel.
Sometimes we joke about being in our
“second childhood,” an expression that used to be used long ago
for senile person becoming old and childish. But part of that early
childhood is still with us and is romantic at times. For example,
Loretta is still intrigued by doll furniture and clothes and nursery
rhymes. Perhaps we are freer than earlier to express the unspoiled
childishness that is still in us and perhaps reawakened in us. We are
not living in the original, but the earlier is living in us and it
blends into the present eon, enriching our daily lives. Perhaps
having a little more time, being more relaxed, we are a little more
creative and reflective to bring the most interesting of the past
into our present experience. We are not living in the past, but the
past is still with us to enrich our lives.
It seems to me now that many middle-aged and younger persons do not have as much fun with a sense of humor as
we do in our private lives. They think too straight forward and often
don’t smile at the ironies of life with a sense of humor. When our
children were youth, I could hardly be funny to them however I tried.
They were too serious and objective, or didn’t they think adults
could or should be funny, just “da…” was the response I sometimes received. At our age now, we don’t
have to be serious all the time, not even most of the time. We can
stand more at the sidelines and just smile or laugh at the strange
things of life. We can see wonder, humor, irony, or incongruities where many
persons tend to see only a current set of facts. We stand, watch, and
critique life rather than being buried or challenged by it. Being
more carefree, we are always ready to see the weird side of issues.
After all, what are we suppose to worry about, although we could have
plenty to be concerned about.
Frequently we see younger persons
expressing their hopes, dreams, and uncertainties. Neither did we nor
do they know what the future holds. We know what our life has been,
where we achieved our dreams or didn’t. We know youth have options;
we also know that life will have twists and opportunities, and
attractions so that any young person’s goals may shift as life is
lived out. They have many options, but can’t predict how it will
all turn out. We look back; they look forward. We can see where we
succeeded. where we might have made other choices. We cannot advise
younger persons with any great wisdom but they may learn from our
lives, although they are living with some different perspectives and
opportunities. It seems every generation has to work through its own
directions and issues. They can learn from accumulated knowledge of
their elders, but they must integrate it into their life in a
meaningful way just as their elders are still doing. Probably the
greatest guiding light for all ages is, “What will I wish I had
done when I look back 5 years from now, or 50 years from now?
Projected hindsight, you may call it, to guide you now. From the
back of my memory is the poetic line, “Grow old with me, the best
is yet to me” which also comes up in a more recent song by John
Lennon
