Approaching 250
Lessons of Aging
Aging can be a privilege.
Sheltered from the storms and indignities of work, I’m able to distance myself from the rush and fretfulness of the human circus.1
What emerges minus such distractions? Memories good and bad, sometimes sharp regret, but often moments of incandescent joy. The mind can act as a benign sorting machine, bringing into the foreground the first sighting of a loved one, or the sun shower on a bridge in Galway, or the births of my sons, or the wonder of Faulkner’s and Morrison’s prose, or the luminous smile of an award recipient, or the snow-covered Mission Mountains on an April morning, or . . . .
But above all, age allows perspective. In the flow of experience, humans rarely have time to stop and reflect. Instead we rush headlong from event to event, crisis to crisis, making it up as we go, determined to survive, to persist, expecting to get off the treadmill at some point soon, though that place of rest keeps slipping into the future.
Now, several years into my retirement, something like objectivity offers itself as a gift in recompense for an aging body. The mind continues to mature while the corporeal shell slouches toward senescence. I find myself revisiting difficult passages out of the past with a newfound serenity. I’m often the antihero of those memories, the daft searcher choosing the misleading path or forcing an own goal. At the time of such choices the defensive self resists an honest reckoning, too protective of ego and status to acknowledge the mistake.2
Examples from my past are legion, but I have no interest in resurrecting precise moments of folly that could still cause pain for others. Instead let me generalize a few lessons extracted from this archeological search through my past:
We can never know enough in the moment to make a definitive call on a research question, or a personnel crisis, or an unexpected move. Decisions rest on finite knowledge, a partial assessment of vectors at play. I strive to forgive my younger self for making inevitably flawed calls.
So much of what harms us arrives in the voice or gestures of proximate people. Often I took those responses personally, assuming ill intent if not active malice, and yet, every person, including those who “harmed” me, suffer from pain and confusion. It’s possible to look back on conflict and “de-personalize” it, to realize perhaps for the first time colleagues’ and acquaintances’ hurt that distorted their behaviors (and of course I have to include myself in that forgiveness, given my own intentional and unintentional mistreatment of others).
So many of the conflicts throughout my life emerged from competition over status and resources. We often sublimate or hide the material sources of conflict behind terms like “honor” and “professionalism.” But we’re scared animals, at sea in a roiling economy with few sources of support, and so frantic to secure our well-being. Weary and worn down by such pressing fret, we can turn irrational and overreactive, attacking others without forethought or care. Looking back on my personal history, those acts were especially evident early in my teaching career. That cocky academic, dismissive of older colleagues, was really a scared child.
These lessons now frame my life and, perhaps to the regret of others, I share them as occasion allows (pity the poor dental hygienist who must absorb my garbled suggestion she take apparent slights less personally).
Thoughts on aging and maturity preoccupy me as our nation approaches its 250th anniversary. We’re now led by a cadre of politicians, influencers, and activists who insist we suppress the negative and embrace the positive about our past. In fact, these voices preach that bringing forth traumas such as slavery, unjust wars, economic inequality, and expansion into native lands is un-American.
But that insistence reveals an immature, frightened culture, a society that refuses to learn from its past. Americans presently seem unable to offer grace and forgiveness to the nation’s earlier incarnations. We resist acknowledging that choices such as the Indian Removal Act of 1830 were born of ignorance, greed, and fear. We wish to slide by the overt panic and racism of Japanese internment during World War Two. We avert our gaze from the manifest indignities and cruelty of Jim Crow.
But these things happened—they emerged from distinctive moments in the nation’s unfolding. Applying my personal life lessons, we can admit our forebears acted on partial knowledge, took umbrage at apparent slights or threats, and concealed material aggression behind high-flown phrases such as “civilization” and “manifest destiny.”
What are we Americans so afraid of that we cannot acknowledge these mistakes and build on the lessons learned? After all, when I call out the legacy of conquest in my home state, I am not personally attacking any living Montanan. I’m asking that we honestly confront that past, acknowledge the lingering pain of those choices, and strive for reconciliation. Sometimes the simple act of seeing the pain clearly can offer solace.
There’s nothing un-American about seeking to know our past in all its complexity. No, it’s an act of cultural maturity, a recognition of our humanness and, yes, the possibility of doing better. We can be better, to quote a phrase. But only if we allow ourselves the perspective of age and maturity as the United States turns 250.
I realize my privilege depends on good health and financial and physical security, benefits unavailable for many aging Americans.
Of course many of the foibles that complicated my life path remain in evidence. I am still too “wired” and impatient with others, too quick to respond defensively to criticism (probably an effect of my Catholic upbringing), too much in my head when spending time with others while working through a writing project. Age does not eliminate these traits; rather, as the saying goes, we become more fully ourselves with time’s passage. I find, however, that I’m more aware of these tendencies and now make an effort to catch myself when manifesting them. My family and friends can assess whether I truly manage my emotions better than in the past and their honest reflections are welcome.
Well said, Ken.