Out of Time by Lynne Segal

Author:Lynne Segal [Segal, Lynne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso Books
Published: 2013-11-04T16:00:00+00:00

5

Flags of Resistance

‘Old age is not interesting until one gets there,’ May Sarton wrote.1 Well, most of us will get there, indeed, linger there for quite some time before we die. But can we make it interesting, at least for ourselves, or perhaps even for certain others across the generations? In this chapter I look at further ways of resisting the fear of old age, beginning with a straightforward refusal to acknowledge one’s own ageing. However, there are other ways to recognize and value the mixed experiences of old age, in which beauty, pain, resilience and resistance intermingle, while time itself appears more fluid.

That ageing is never straightforward has been a refrain throughout this book. Given our enormous diversity, it is not so hard to challenge most stereotypes of old people, whatever form they take. There are, for instance, always a few formidable figures, including among the very old, who not only stay determinedly in touch with world affairs, but even manage to keep commenting usefully upon them. It is not so difficult, either, to intervene in the battles between the optimists and pessimists addressing ageing and old age. One side, like May Sarton, emphasizes the continued health and vigour possible in old age, stressing it as a period when the experiences of a lifetime offer spaces of openness for meditation and spiritual renewal.2 The other sees only the losses, regret and sadness attending old age, as Philip Roth and Martin Amis epitomized. Neither side sufficiently encompasses the conflicts and potential, or the ambivalence and paradoxes, of ageing and old age.

Meanwhile, the world races ahead anyway, indifferent to our life or death. That sense of being left behind, losing out, can begin at whatever age we turn around, regretting the loss of the pleasures of yesterday. Indeed, Paul McCartney was only twenty-three when he wrote and the Beatles recorded ‘Yesterday’, when troubles seemed so far away, which became one of the most popular songs ever made, and with more cover versions than any other.3 Nostalgia is always with us. Indeed, as the psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas suggests, it is the passing of time itself that is ‘intrinsically traumatic’: ‘the loss of youth, the loss of loved ones, the loss of “futures” ’ – some regretfully register these transformations well before old age.4 However, though sentiments of loss, decline and an inability to keep in touch with the world can certainly occur at almost any stage in adulthood, there is no doubt that such feelings must increase with age, although by then old people sometimes find better ways of dealing with them.

Defying Chronological Age

‘You haven’t changed at all’ are words I love to hear when meeting people I have not seen for a while. Guiltily, I cherish the thought that I don’t look my age, and like to believe friends and acquaintances when they flatter. So do all of my friends, I notice, and I’ve learned to offer these reassuring words myself. It is a losing game, I know, rather than any flag of resistance to the dread of ageing.

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