Mandy and I chatted after a concert last week. She told me that she usually likes this column, but she wasn’t so sure about the last one. Kind of a downer, she thought. The column was about death becoming an ever more present companion when we are old. It was about losing loved ones and losing personal capabilities. It was, in a sense, about the sadness of being old. Is sadness a downer? I didn’t feel down when I wrote it. It was, after all, about LIVING that last part of life. As per Eriksonian developmental psychology, I suggested that a well-lived life is rewarded at each stage by acquiring a specific virtue. During old age, that virtue is wisdom and that is a big deal because wisdom is just what we need to make that last part worthwhile. But what is “wisdom?”
PLEASE STOP READING NOW and take time to answer this question for yourself. What does “wise” mean to you? How do you recognize a wise person when you meet one?
Tick — tick — tick…
Got your answer? I’d love to know your thoughts about this (really!) and you can email them to me at ron@agefriendlycarbondale.org
In the meantime, let’s start with Socrates. When the Oracle of Delphi proclaimed him the wisest man in Athens, Socrates was puzzled. He was convinced that, despite a lifetime of seeking knowledge, he knew nothing. So, Socrates set out to prove the Oracle wrong. One after another, he approached men who were generally reputed to be wise and asked each one about what was truly worthwhile in life. Each had an answer, and each believed his answer to be true, but the answers varied and none of the men could fully answer Socrates’ questions about what they professed to know. Only Socrates was unsure about everything. This, he realized, was why the Oracle had correctly proclaimed him the wisest man in Athens. For the Oracle, wisdom consisted of being aware of one’s ignorance (aka, humility).
My father-in-law, Irv, was a powerhouse and perhaps the wisest person I’ve known. In addition to raising four excellent children who remain close to one another to this day, Irv was a successful businessman, a self-taught painter proficient enough to hang in local galleries, a self-taught musician good enough to be paid for performing, a decent handyman who built things, keenly aware of politics at all levels, something of a historian and an occasional world traveler. As he aged, Irv was angry about being diminished. “If I can’t play music anymore,” he would say, “I won’t want to live.” But when arthritis prevented him from performing, he learned to take increased joy in studying. When a shattered leg and a heart condition limited his travels, he took even more joy in his studies. In his last days, when he could do little more than sit up, he awoke each day, looking forward to seeing a cardinal that sometimes visited his garden. Irv was good at learning to give things up without giving up. The aspect of wisdom Irv presents us with here is acceptance (aka, knowing when to give up).
When he was dying Irv told us that he had always felt responsible for his children and that he still did, even now when they were middle-aged. “All my life,” he said, “I’ve known that you are watching me, so it was important to live my life as well as possible. Now I’m dying and you are still watching me, so it’s important that I die well.” Here’s another aspect of wisdom — taking responsibility for whatever agency we have (aka, doing what we can).
There we have it; wisdom as I currently see it consists of humility, acceptance without surrender and realistic agency. Understanding and living those three values is what I consider wisdom and it makes old age, so filled with loss, worth living. The longer we live, the more of our abilities we lose. Person by person, we lose much of our communities. Wisdom helps us live with the losses and bring joy to endings. Sorry Mandy, but that’s how it is. It’s sad, but that’s different from “downer.” I was sad when my children struck out on their own because their childhoods were over. They would never look at me with those wide, innocent eyes again. But I also was and remain joyful with the memories of what was. Life means loss, loss is experienced as sadness and sadness is very close to joy. Sadness means we love what we lose, and love is joyous.
I’m losing a lot these days and the longer I live the more I’ll lose. That makes me very sad and very joyous. We can’t avoid sadness without avoiding love, and avoiding love, dear Mandy, would be the ultimate downer. “Freedom,” the poet wrote, “is just another word for nothing left to lose.” Until we’re free, let’s experience the joy of losing. Sorry if that depresses you, Mandy. You know, old people, we do like to ramble on.
Mature Content is a monthly feature from Age-Friendly Carbondale.