Tag: similes for old age

A Great Old Age Simile from Bertrand Russell – and Some Advice

Bertrand Russell lived to be very old, and – in his rational and philosophical way – was much interested in the best way to grow old. (I could have told him it was slowly!)  Russell starts by admitting that the best advice is to “choose your ancestors carefully” – his own parents died young, but his grandparents led long and productive lives.  (His paternal grandfather was prime minister of England well into his 70s and an active opposition leader long after that.)  Russell cautions us against expecting too much from our children and gives the realistic advice that they won’t abide much from their elders in the way of advice or society – but they will welcome any funds that might be forthcoming.  All true enough.

In fact, in his essay, “How to Grow Old,” Russell says there are two major mistakes that oldsters make.  The first is to cling to the younger generation, or even worse, to try to imitate them.  The other error is to cling to the past:

It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead.  One’s thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done.  This is not always easy; one’s own past is a gradually increasing weight.

So, what does Mr. Russell suggest that we do? His great mind has pondered this, and his conclusion is much like that of his contemporary, Simone de Beauvoir (see here), both of whom think that we need “projects” in old age:

I think that a successful old age is easiest for those who have strong impersonal interests involving appropriate activities.  It is in this sphere that experience is really fruitful, and it is in this sphere that the wisdom born of experience can be exercised without being oppressive.

In his 80s and 90s, Russell took on things like nuclear disarmament, opposition to the Vietnam War, and overpopulation.  I hope he would have also approved of less noble pursuits and projects – like playing the piano or cultivating a garden.  Russell himself was purported to dabble in birdwatching.

Russell acknowledges that fear of death is often an issue with the old, but he finds this somewhat “ignoble.”  It is in talking about the best way to overcome our mortal fear that he waxes the most poetic, as we can see in this passage:

The best way to overcome it—so at least it seems to me—is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.

I love water metaphors for life.  Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity – all spiritual thought comes back to the symbol, the example, of water.  We are made of water, we need water, and – at our best – we are like water.  The Tao reminds us that, like the Tao, “water doesn’t strive or compete. It simply flows, finding its own path. [reaching its own level,] and adapting to the environment. This teaches the importance of letting go of ego and resistance, allowing things to unfold naturally.”

And, this brings me to Spinoza.  (I always come back to Spinoza.)  Many great geniuses – Russell and Einstein to name just two – were Spinozans.  Russell tells us that Spinoza was the “best example” of being able to view the world in this impersonal way as the end approached:

Spinoza, who was perhaps the best example of the way of feeling of which I am speaking remained completely calm at all times, and in the last days of his life preserved the same friendly interest in others as he had shown in his days of health.  To a man whose hopes and wishes extend widely beyond his personal life, there is not the same occasion for fear that there is for a man of more limited desires.

But, assuming we can transcend the personal, where does that leave us?  These are tough days. In my greener years, I protested the Vietnam War, signed petitions, marched for peace.  I was young, but things did not seem so overwhelming as they are today.  I was stronger and more resilient. I bellowed, but I did not despair.  Now I am tired, and I often despair.  I would urge the younger folks to get more involved, but we did not listen to our elders who told us to get less involved.  The tides rise and fall.  Tranquility in old age does not mean giving in; it means giving up neither our serenity nor our standards. And we must keep in mind that we are about to “merged in the sea.”  Russell is also famous for telling us, “The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible.”  These days the world is often horrible, and yet we must maintain our equanimity and “friendly interest.”  Not easy.

It is always interesting to look at how smart people have approached and lived their own old ages.  For more about the conjunction of old age and genius, you might look back on my blog, “Does Life Have Two Trajectories?”

Bare Ruin’d Choirs – Seasons and Similes of Old Age

I have been intending to write a blog about the notion of “singularity,” but my readings on the subject seem to go on and on, so I thought I would just look around me and write about the season and the seasons of life.

This is my first autumn back in New England after almost a decade.  We moved from western North Carolina two months ago (just in time, I guess).  Autumn was longer but less colorful North Carolina; there were the brilliant yellows but not the mellow golds and reds.  Fall has always been my favorite season, and I am looking forward to the colors, the smells, and the urgency of buttoning up the house (nesting) before winter arrives.

If autumn is my favorite season, October has always been my favorite month.  For years (until the printing wore off), I used a coffee cup inscribed with Thoreau’s quote about October. Here it is, to remind us to imbibe some of the magic Henry found in October:

October is the month of painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world. As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a bright tint just before they fall, so the year near its setting. October is its sunset sky; November the later twilight.

Back to our earliest records, poets used the seasons of the year as similes for the seasons of life.  We still do it all the time, talking about a “December bride” or someone being “in the autumn of his years.”  These are apt similes, much like that of the Baby New Year and Old Father Time.  We grow and blossom, reap the karma of our earlier life, and close in ourselves with the narrowing of the light at the end of the year.  One significant difference, of course, is that our lives are linear, while nature recycles upon itself. (Or, as Dante contends, the life span is a parabola! See further discussion of that possibility here.) Perhaps the problem is how we look at it; if we could accept that we are part of nature perhaps we would see it differently.

Cicero, in his “On Old Age,” uses many images of old age that relate senescence to the cycles of nature.  Thus we have age as the “tranquil evening” of the life’s day, as the “autumn” or “winter” of the life’s year, as the ripening, maturing, even withering fruit of the tree of life:

There had to be a time of withering, of readiness to fall, like the ripeness that comes to the fruits of the trees and of the earth.  But a wise man will face this prospect with resignation, for resistance against nature is as pointless as the battles of the giants against the gods.

Clearly, the giants of Silicon Vally do not agree that “resistance against nature” is pointless, but more on them in my next blog.

Shakespeare starts his masterful Sonnet 73 about old age with these lines:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

Latter day poets use the images of the seasons all the time to connote the ages of man; when Philip Larkin wrote his comic masterpiece about growing older, he titled it “The Winter Palace,” and ended with the image of a last December snowstorm:

Then there will be nothing I know.

My mind will fold into itself, like fields, like snow.

For more examples, revisit Chesterton’s “Gold Leaves,” or Rilke’s “Autumn.” To find more correlations between the seasons and the stages of life, just look at my (incomplete) list of poems about old age.  And please send me any of your favorite poems to add to the list. Or write one.

But, back to me and to the month of October.  I used to think I was in the October of life, but that is foolish at this point.  If I were a maple tree, my leaves would have long since been raked up and hauled away.  I am more “bare ruin’d choirs” than the rich golds and yellows of this lustrous October.  I am surely in November, and probably most of the way to Thanksgiving.  The “later twilight” of life.  Robert Frost said that sorrow was his “November Guest,” but yet appreciated the season:

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow…

Yet, I can still enjoy the present October while looking over my shoulder to catch a glimpse of past Octobers, Septembers, Mays.  And forward to the dark and quiet evenings of December.