Aging well is the best PR campaign
I take nothing for granted. I want to make the most of my time, I’m more ambitious than ever
Bob Brody, consultant, essayist, and author of Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy
Except for when I travel around the country, I never eat Thai food. It's as if I have "outgrown" the taste. For years, I never even tried a pad-thai, the traditional dish of rice noodles, tamarind sauce, and peanuts. I even lied about it. When someone back in Italy, learning I lived in Thailand, praised the dish, I used to say I loved it too. But there’s one thing I never get tired of: roaming in the local food market. It’s a small market under a tin roof. It is divided into a grid of cement market stalls and vendors of the same goods are grouped. There’s a corner for flowers, a row for fresh fruits and vegetables, a stall for temple offerings, some sellers of miscellaneous goods - hairpins, garbage bags, detergents, and copybooks - and the rest are vendors of ready meals.
A guy roasts northern sausages under a metal chimney, a young girl in a shake stall - shakes for beauty, energy, and love - and then there are big metal basins of soup that release in the air the sweet, round and mouth-watering smell of coconut milk. Vendors serve it in tiny transparent plastic bags, closed with a red rubber band. There are electric fly swatters that turn lazily on fried fish, a young girl waving some strings of plastic attached to a wooden stick to keep flies at bay, and pyramids of boiled eggs. Here and there, I can see flames burning behind the stalls and, it is not rare, especially on a hot day, to spot an old vendor sleeping with her head on her arms in the middle of piles of bananas and mangos. But what I enjoy the most is the noise: the humming of the voices, the cicadas chirping under the roof, and the drumming of the rain, with its uneven tones depending upon the unpredictable deluge from the clouds.
For me, always pressed by the ticking of an invisible watch, the market is an oasis of slowness. I deeply enjoy strolling around, peeking curiously here and there. That’s how I noticed some pale yellow and green dragon fruits, instead of the usual brilliant fuchsia and green. It was a wow-view as if spotting a blue cherry. I tell this story because since I spoke with Bob Brody, he reminds me of exotic fruit, with a soft peel and a juicy inside. One of those fruits that when you taste it for the first time it feels like being under a shower of sparkling glitter. That’s the effect of Bob’s words. And also the reason for our encounter. I got in touch with him because, from the pages of The New York Times, he called the advantages of aging “The biggest little dirty secret of all times.” I wanted to know more about it and I discovered not only a man in love with life but a man who’s not afraid to say so and capable of saying it beautifully.
Where does your interest for aging come from?
I got interested in aging because I got older. I write much about what happens to me, to my family, friends, and in my neighborhood. I discovered aging, it is a new thing for me. We always have strong opinions about aging, but it is better than we are told.
Everybody makes different discoveries. Some things about growing older are more negative, worse than you thought and some things are more positive. The simple fact of having the opportunity of finding out is fantastic. We focus too much on the physical decline; we should be more mindful.
How much does your relationship with your grandmother whom you wrote about in your book Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes of Age influence your approach to aging?
My Nana set an excellent example, by being very vital until she passed away at the age of 97. She was a matriarch in the pure sense; she kept us united, she paid attention to the news and took part in charity events. She used to say: “You learn something every day.” I thought it was a cliché, but she was right. For other aspects, she was a creature of her time. She marked age as she was taught to do. She asked about my health and, in order to show her how fit I was at the age of forty, I did some push-ups. She expressed her concern. From her point of view, I was past the age of exercise. She held ideas on what was appropriate for a certain age. She had a kind of contradictory attitude.
In your recent story in The New York Times, you wrote: “Aging can make us better than ever.” What changes do you notice in your contemporary self compared with your younger self?
I can give you all kind of examples, but what I think is gloriously important is that I became less selfish. I got married at 26 and it was news to me that I had to take care of my wife and this meant that I was not the most important person in my life anymore. Maybe, I was the second. Then I became a father and the feeling grew exponentially. “I’m not the second most important person in my life, I’m maybe the third and then the fourth,” I said to myself. Now that I am a grandfather of Lucia Antonia, who’s almost two, I realized that this attitude evolved in my workplace, too. I think more about my colleagues and the people I work with. It’s not just an altruistic perspective, a good business practice, it’s a way of being that makes me feel better. Under a certain point of view, you could even say that aging is the best PR campaign.
You defined the advantages of aging as the "biggest dirty little secret of all times.” Why do you think we “keep” it secret?
My theory is that we are superstitious. We worry we might jinx ourselves. That’s why I was reluctant to write that piece. People could perceive you as competitive, as bragging and that’s what also happened. Amongst the hundreds of comments I received, some people called me “smug” and “ignorant.” Somebody wrote I inspired in them the desired to punch me. People want to keep to themselves. Most of the readers, though, wrote that they feel exactly the same and others raised interesting points, like: do I feel the way I do because of my age or because of my circumstances?
One of the reasons that makes ageism so pernicious is that we are brought up ageist and grow up to be, more or less unconsciously, self-ageist. What is your take?
I never felt a victim of ageism. There’s nothing that really jumps out at me. People prize experience and mastery. Even professionally, I recently worked with people who are my age, people who are younger and older. I noticed an appreciation for older people. Then, yes, when I play basketball, kids ask me questions and think that it is amazing that I’m still playing. One day, a guy drove past in the car and said: “Hey Dad!”
A friend of mine compared aging to a second adolescence. Do you agree with this definition?
I sort of do. I’m making all kinds of plans for my future. Things that I loved and things I never had the chance to do. For example, I have never flown a kite very much and I’m planning to catch up. I’m also planning to buy a telescope and became an amateur astronomer. I will keep my mind agile and I don’t think I’ll ever stop working with words. I will also move to the South of Italy where my wife, my daughter and grandchild live.
With reference to the list that appeared in your article of things you want more (more hugs from my wife, more conversations with friends, more challenges as a writer, more lunches under a summer sun with a glass of Chianti), how do you explain this hunger for life?
As Bill Clinton said, you reach a point when you have more yesterdays than tomorrows. I take nothing for granted. I want to make the most of my time and I’m more ambitious than ever.
You pointed out that “working hard has never felt easier.” Can you distill the “ingredients” of this attitude to work?
When you are young, you tend to be anxious, maybe hysterical, you panic more than you need. With time, you become more competent and confident. You can recognize you’ve already been in a situation before and know you can handle it. Now it feels different, much of the anxiety evaporates. I love and practice PR. I made a reference to the flow in working. I feel I am caught up in the moment and completely transformed.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
The best way to educate the world about aging is by example. Be involved, smile, contribute. People in the business community are working longer; retirement is not for everybody. The very idea of retirement needs to be questioned. Of course, it depends on the type of job, the more arduous, the more a retirement age is needed.
We use being young as a measuring stick for being old. Can you imagine how different it would be if this awareness could inform our choices when we are young? Choosing a meaningful career rather than a route to a pension?
Absolutely. For those of us who are not physically involved, our job is a source of enjoyment and gratification. Looking at the beginning with the end in mind would be a revolutionary approach to working and career.
