Learning to be old

Sam Smith – As I approach my ninth decade on this planet I’ve finally started thinking seriously about being old. Among the factors that encouraged me was noticing that I was no longer as involved with other people. After all, over 200 of my close relatives, friends and co-workers have died and are no longer around.  And only about 2% of men 85 or older are still alive.

With more time on my hands, I started searching for a metaphor for my status. As writer  Thomas L. Friendman, has put it, “One of my writing techniques has always been to employ metaphors to explain complex issues.”

Following his advice, the first thing that came to mind was my time as a musician. I had much enjoyed it but now realize how insignificant my role had actually been. For example, if you  are playing in a band and you note the number of choruses played by the group and other musicians’ solos, your own singular performance seems pretty minor.

The same is true of other aspects of one’s life. What is rarely mentioned about musicians is that they use their non-solo time helping others in a detailed manner. This sort of working together happens far more frequently in our normal lives but we seldom discuss it. If musical notes can bring us so well together, perhaps other things can also.

But our collective minds have gone in alternative directions. Today, success is something you are meant to display as a personal trait and not share with others. My guess is that starting in about the 1980s our nation switched increasingly from a cooperative democracy to a self centered corpocracy.

For me, thankfully, there were experiences that led me otherwise. Having five siblings taught me early on that progress was often a shared and not a competitive skill. Serving as operations officer on a Coast Guard cutter illustrated to me that, regardless of rank, you really depended on those who had the right answer at the right time.  And working as media advisor to Marion Barry when he was the first  chair of SNCC showed me that not even skin color had to divide us.

I was lucky to have had others who taught me values and wisdom, but hardly any would be prominent today. For example,  we seldom  mention Lyndon Johnson any more.

Now I find myself in a different society, one in which individual power and success is considered infinitely more important than cooperation, group achievement or shared decency.

Fortunately I now live in a small Maine town where numerous summers had taught me the pleasures and satisfaction of decency and common effort. I don’t feel the power or significance that many of my acquaintances seek but I can still find happiness in a place so small and gentle that joy has remained easy to come by and even being 88 doesn’t feel so bad.