People-persons are born, and NO!people-persons are also born. Those who have tender skins and get bruised easily, sometimes have resorted to animals for company. And great company they are too. I've had patients about to be admitted to the hospital who refused to stay overnight because of a dear pet at home that needed tending. Non-conditional love from and to an animal can be a hearty inducement to enhance one's life force. But, even for the tender skinned, it's human contact which notices one's waning pallor or lost weight, who knows what you went through 40 years ago and have a deep understanding in one's longevity and a corresponding empathy. One could surmise how solitary confinement is used as a punishment and a method of torture. We are social beings.
From the point of view of someone who has been around a lot of elderly and seen the various environments that sustain them (and which they sometimes endure), a diverse and varied circumstance appears most life-giving. Living in a place and having the experience where all generations move through frequently, where the familiar and the unfamiliar co-exist and nature in the forms of animals, plants and creative outlet are commonplace, is ideal. We become a bit crystallized, brittle (usually) as we age. We want what we want, we resist change (yet our capacities are under a continual onslaught of change), we cling to our familiar habits. Whereas one part of me wants to say, by the time one achieves octogenarian status, it's ok to have dessert before dinner, so-to-speak. And yet, change and challenging one's flexibility in agedness is a good idea. Maintaining and forming new circles of relationships while continuing to practice connection and communication with oneself and others is life giving.
It is unavoidable; death is on its way. But being old isn't the time to stop living.
"We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection."
--Dalai Lama
There is an essay by Lin Yutang titled "On Growing Old Gracefully," that is very complementary to your post. It appeared originally in his book, The Importance of Living, and is now online here. Of course, it was written in the 1930s, so it's unlikely that it describes modern Chinese attitudes. But it does present the reader with an alternative way to think about aging -- and an elegant one, as well.
ReplyDeleteHere"s a couple of brief passages:
"In the matter of our attitude toward age, the East and the West take exactly opposite points of view. This is clearest in the matter of asking about a person's age or telling one's own. In China, the first question a person asks the other on an official call, after asking his name, is, "What is your glorious age?" If the person replies apologetically that he is twenty-three or twenty-eight, the other party generally comforts him by saying that he still has a glorious future, and that one day he may become old. Enthusiasm grows in proportion as the gentleman is able to report a higher and higher age, and if the person is anywhere over fifty, the inquirer immediately drops his voice in humility and respect."
And this:
"It seems a linguistic misfortune that hale and hearty old men in America tell people that they are "young," or are told that they are "young" when really what is meant is that they are healthy. To enjoy health in old age, or to be "old and healthy," is the greatest of human luck, but to call it "healthy and young" is but to detract from that glamour and impute imperfection to what is really perfect. After all, there is nothing more beautiful in this world than a healthy wise old man, with "ruddy cheeks and white hair," talking in a soothing voice about life as one who knows it."
Methinks it behooves folks today to look ahead, and be as proactive toward old age as possible; we've all seen or read about the affects of not doing this. Chinese medicine says movement is key. I say, "Begin today." Even for the very elderly, there are ways to go about it.
hey walt, what a great essay by Yutang! When I was in Xian in the Muslim Bazarre with some other Qigongists, we stopped by a tea shop where the tea master served us at a ceremony of sorts. I was 49 at the time and my colleagues were 5-7 years younger. The tea master repeatedly deferred to me as "the mother", had me sit next to him gave me the first sip of tea from the pot. I didn't know whether to be revered or offended! The essay you mention is illuminating and I am appreciative of it.
DeleteRecently a 65+ woman said she had never felt as fit as she had in the last few years, she was just coming into her stride. Her 96 yo mother didn't care where she was moved to, as long as she got physical therapy everyday; the daily movement routine had come to mean so much to her. I've been meaning to write about movement, one of my favorite subjects, in life's continuum and now you have me thinking.
As always, thank you for your solid contribution here.
"I've been meaning to write about movement..."
DeletePlease do. The more I ponder the subject -- as basic to health -- the more intriguing it seems. Here's what Leon Hammer, MD and acupuncturist, wrote in the intro to his book, Dragon Rises, Red Bird Flies. (a tough read, btw); he is describing the early development of Chinese medicine:
"Seeking a practical way to assess health and disease, they chose first to define and characterize life in terms applicable to such an assessment.
"The sages fulfilled the promise of this quest by looking for the essential difference between life and death, between a living and a dead person. This quintessential difference they identified as movement. Simply stated, where there is life, there is movement; and where there is death, there is no movement. Those of us who have been in the position of pronouncing death may best appreciate this elegant formulation: cessation of movement and utter stillness dramatically differ from life.
"According to the written record, it became the preoccupation of the ancient scientists to study the phenomenon of movement, which, they found, represented the life of the universe (macrocosm), the earth (mesocosm), and man (microcosm). Observing movement in the heavens, they became good astronomers, and in the seasons, good farmers. Seeing it in man, they became good physicians."
So, your take on the subject will be interesting.
What Hammer says about movement/lack of movement determining the life in the body is interesting, and I question it, as life-force/spirit energy can hang out for quite a long time after the heart and lungs have stopped operating. This aspect of the organism's death is quite surprising. Some people die and there is absolutely no sign of life and in fact it is almost like they've been dead for a couple of weeks, their is NO life energy present (they have "flown the coop"!). Other people's life force hangs out for awhile. I've had a couple of times gone back and checked the respirations and chest (well after an hour after pronouncement)their life force still intact, energy of some type moving through the body. Sitting with this type of person at their body's end is so interesting. The sense of their transition is very full. This would be another post about energy in relation to spirit and the body.
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