Today, I officially turn 80.
I now accept that I wake up with less zest than before, that it takes time to adjust to beginning another day. Despite my best efforts, I lack the self-discipline to resist greeting my faithful companion, the PC, Good Morning. It is the only relationship that I have had for the last four years since Jacqueline left.
Much of my life at this juncture is about governing my mental attitude towards day-to-day activities as I age. I am well-read in this subject. I have long known its inevitability. I am not afraid of death, recognising that that is something you do not have to live through before the final breath. But ageing is different; you must live through it whether you like it or not. You age until you die.
As I increasingly become aware that this or that muscle or bone no longer obeys my orders, I recall Simone de Beauvoir’s advice back in 1972 that ‘successful’ ageing is all about how gracefully you “surrender control” (over your body). I have known that for years and have been preparing for that surrender. However, I confess that now, in the midst of wars with Time, it is not so easy.
Do Armies ever prepare for surrender as the battle begins? No, they do not. But the difference is that while the ultimate winner or loser in a battle remains unknown until the end, we know the winner from the very start of our own combat with mortality, and, therefore, we must prepare to surrender. Of course, we always have suicide as a choice. But as my muse of hormone-charged teen times, Marilyn Monroe, observed, “it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but then you’d never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know you.” Ironically, she died at 36.
The journey began for me back in 1978 during a visit with Michelle to northern France. We came across an Epitaph at a monastery in Clichy, where, at its entrance, the buried monks (13th – 15th century) warn visitors that:
“What you are now,
We once were.
What we are now,
You will be.”
(For those unable to make the trip to Clichy, this epitaph is also at the entrance of the 15th-century Capuchin Crypt beneath the church of Santa Maria near Via Veneto in Rome.)
Michelle and I discussed this injunction at some length during the rest of the vacation, reaching several conclusions about our day-to-day behaviour. That verse, along with the writings of Marcus Aurelius and Kierkegaard, has since greatly influenced my life. For example, thereafter, I ceased to distinguish between the old and the young. I began to treat children as adults and never ignored people of old age.
It is a damning charge against the youth and middle-agers in Western societies that persons perceived as old become invisible socially and are ‘disappeared’. Consider a family gathering, for instance, and you will observe that older people often go unnoticed in conversations, which leads to their voluntary silence to hold on to self-respect.
Children may not be invisible, but they are not encouraged to participate in adult conversations of general societal interest. Instead, these days, they are often encouraged to occupy themselves, even at the dining table, with electronic playthings to keep them ‘quiet’. Thus they do not learn the art of conversation and to hone it as they grow older.
Incidentally, recounting our extensive tours of monasteries and churches in France and Italy reminds me of another influence in my life. Back in the 1960s in Canberra, I met Catholic lay priest Rugendyke. He was a liberal by any measure – strongly opposed to but not condemnatory of abortions, for example – and was trying to convert me. He came to realise that Hinduism was not a religion but a way of life and, therefore, technically, it was more a matter of persuading me to turn Catholic. We had glorious meals at his homely house in Red Hill over theological debates.
He failed but remained a good friend. However, I learnt a great deal about the Christian faith from him in those innocent and impressionable years. One highlight was the discovery of the Confessions of Saint Augustine. I have delved into them on and off over the years, but one memorable quote has often served me well in self-justifying my hedonistic behaviour. He pleads to God, “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet”. Augustine adds, disarmingly, that he wanted in his life to be “satisfied, not quelled”. (Chapter 7, Book VIII.)
I interpreted the election of Pope Leo XIV as a vindication of my steadfast belief in Saint Augustine’s injunction. He is the first pope from the Order of Saint Augustine, a religious order within the Catholic Church!
