The way we frame aging hurts all of us future older people

The people I talked with had a lot of the challenges I expected, but they didn't define themselves by their limitations. Only other people defined them that way

From left to right: Fred Jones, one of the elders part of the series of interview of John Leland, Metro reporter for The New York Times and author of Happiness Is a Choice You Make - Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old (@Nicole Bengiveno/Redux/The New York Times)

When I talked with Ashton Applewhite a few months ago, I was touched by her revelation that, when you start to notice ageism, you see it every time it happens. Her comment: “You can’t put the genie back into the bottle” became the title of her interview. Sometimes, I pull this concept out from the pocket of my memory and it still feels fresh and meaningful. 

Sharing ideas with John Leland, Metro reporter for The New York Times, added a new awareness to Ashton’s quote. As the author of Happiness Is a Choice You Make - Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old, John demonstrates that when it comes to ageism, there are many paths to reach consciousness. For him, it happened because, as a journalist, he chronicled the lives of some elders living in the city. Things could have turned out differently - no lesson learned, no book - but he was prepared to listen.

This brings another piece to the puzzle. There’s a lot of talking about breaking barriers, but we’re so used to thinking in material terms, that we rarely notice the walls that separate the generations. Failing to notice that we have a stereotyped view of the later stages in life is a surefire way to keep them in place. It’s true that we are bombarded by contradictory messages when it come to aging, that’s why - once more - it is fundamental to keep the radar on and the mind open.

As John discovered, the real gift when we take a second look at aging is not only that our perception of getting old changes but everything gets transformed.

How did the idea for the series of interviews in The New York Times come about?

I started with the census, where the number that jumped out was the growth of the population age 85 and up. When I was born there were fewer than a million; now there are more than 6 million. Imagine there suddenly being six times as many teenagers running around. 

 How did you pick the elders you talked with?

The first step was meeting as many people as I could. I wanted different races, classes, sexual orientations, living situations and life stories. I had a couple specific wants: I wanted a couple who met in late life and had the courage to love each other, knowing that they probably wouldn't have long, and that one would watch the other decline. I wanted a gay man or lesbian, because that was a story I didn't know. I wanted a person born outside the US, because in New York, that's where the growth of the older population is. And I chose Jonas Mekas because I saw from interviews that he was a good talker. I would say that all six proved rewarding beyond my hopes. 

 What were your expectations before you embarked on this journey?

I expected to write about the hardships of old age, and to watch people experience these hardships over the course of the year. Because these are the stories we know how to tell about aging. They're familiar and comforting, if not upbeat. 

 Did your perception about the project change along the way? When and why?

It changed gradually. The people had a lot of the challenges I expected, but they didn't define themselves by their limitations. Only other people defined them that way - including, I'm sad to say, me. So that had to change. All of them had lost something, but they lived for what they still had, not what they'd lost. 

 Why did you decide to translate your conversations with the elders you met into a book?

After I finished the first year of New York Times articles, I realized that I had more to say, about what I'd learned about life from these six people who had shared their lives with me. So the Times articles tried to show what being over 85 looked like to the people living it, and the book is about what they taught me about how we can all live better now, whatever our age. 

We are culturally conditioned to think about aging and we do it “by subtraction.” We do not perceive aging for what it is, but for what it is not. Do you have the same feeling? For example, we talk about dependence instead of independence, frailty instead of strength, and we do not generally consider the ability to enjoy the moment, to let the unimportant things go. (See, we don’t even have one single word to say it!)

That's very well put. This way of framing aging hurts older people, because it views them as diminished, but it also hurts all of us future older people. The elders taught me to give that up and to think differently about loss and mortality: to accept them as part of what it means to be human, something that we share with everyone who has ever lived, not something that “happens” to us. They “are” us, our other traits. Accepting them makes it easier to recover from loss and to value each day, because we're truly living as if our days are finite. Which, of course, they are. 

When we read about the Over 50’s buying power and the “untapped market” of the Boomers, we take for granted that the spotlight is on their consumption patterns. What about their values, sense-making, and experiences?

I'm able to buy more at 60 than I could at 30. But that has almost nothing to do with why I'm happier, more contented. Today, if you find a dollar on the street and then later give it to someone in need, the latter act will do more for you. It's just the way we're wired. But the consumer world we live in celebrates finding the dollar, because you can spend it on something. 

We are shaped by an ageist culture and brought up in an ageist society. If we don’t see the older generations for who they are, we won’t be able to see ourselves in our aging process. How can we imagine and design our extended future? After all, we’re going to get old for a long time…

Ask questions. Listen. Listen some more. If someone has been to the far ends of the earth, we want to know what it's like, what they saw, what they learned. Why don't we do that with people who have been to the far reaches of the human lifespan. So often our instinct is to correct: we know more because we're more "up-to-date."

Changing our perspective on aging would change our perspective on living. Do you agree that putting age first would revolutionize the entire construction of meaning in our society

Yes, great question. Think about your life story from the end. What's important to you at 90? Who do you want to spend your time with? What do you hang onto, and what do you let go? Then: if that's what makes for a good life at the end, why aren't we doing more to live that way now? 

People are called older at a younger age. Additionally, we buy into the idea of staying young but grow old indefinitely with the aid of the anti-aging industry. Would it not be time to dig deeper and develop a philosophy of aging, instead?

We should retire the idea of "staying young" when what we really mean is staying energetic, vital, engaged, purposeful, etc. All of these things are available to us at any age. I love the handwritten sign that Jonas Mekas kept in his loft: "Keep dancing. Keep singing. Have a good drink and do not get too serious. OK?" Those are words to live by, at any age.