bits from bob....

A Contemporary Study of Aging

by Robert J. Young
©, 2006, Robert J. Young

[permission is given to reprint with credit noted]

Reference: William H. Thomas, M.D., What are old people for? VanderWyk & Burnham, 2004.
Note: Thomas is a Harvard-educated physician with a continuing interest in the nature of long-term care communities.

Our lives are characterized by a dynamic, unfolding interplay being doing and being. Every phase of life-childhood, adolescence, adulthood, senescence, and elderhood all have these dynamics playing out in various ways.

Consider this brief summary:

• Infants are purest example of being.

• Adolescence is a time of transitioning to adulthood, from the joyfulness of play to a preference for doing over being.

• Adulthood is clearly focused, at least for most people, on doing. "What do you do?"

• Senescence is again a time of transition. Growing into old age is not an easy passage. Experiencing vitality and energy for decades, adults clearly see the rightness and goodness of family and chosen work. Awareness of all the things "you have to do" is one of the first signs of the moving toward senescence-the dawning awareness of heavy toll of doing. This shadow of doubt is at first tentative and intermittent. Gradually emerges the understanding that family and work and the shared experience of countless others. Families are not very much different. My work, important as it is, is not much different than the work experience of millions of others. We are not as unique as we had thought or hoped in our earlier years. We eventually are transformed as we find a desire to set aside of the world of "have to do" in favor the world of "want to do." This latter world is indeed a mysterious world for most of us.

  Consider an illustration which contrasts typical adulthood and senescence. How does one go about the process of baking cookies? For adults, it is one more thing to do on a long list. Children are banished from the process, or included with apprehension. The senescent is more likely to want to bake cookies than to have to bake cookies. Children are more welcome. Bizarre and experimental shapes are the rule. Eating raw cookie dough is encouraged.

  This illustrates the adult's focus on doing and the senescent's search for being. The adult is focused on the task, the senescent on the relationships. Senescence is a time of letting go of the comfort of adulthood, and reaching out to something new and different. This is a function of culture and shared expectations. It is parallel to the ripening process, maturation. This is preparation for the final stage of human development. What could be more beautiful?

• Elderhood brings us full circle to a life that favors being over doing. This is a gift of great value. Seeing the older and younger involved together makes clear that the adults are excluded. God, deliver me from adulthood.

Aging is gradual, rhythmic and highly choreographed. It's the main course of life and its consequences are well known. No one goes to bed with vitality and wakes up old. The progression observed and celebrated is the course of the genuine, and unique, power of aging gracefully.