It's just a rather funny birthday card, sent to me with a lot of love. On the front it says, "Growing old is fabulous" and inside it continues, "nobody ever said that. Anyway, happy birthday. (??Getting old is awesome?said no one ever. Anyway, happy birthday!?) Given the alternative, growing old is surely nicer than dying. In any case, I've never seen a card that says, "Dying is fabulous," and it's hard to imagine to whom such a message might be sent. Surely, the deceased person's relatives would find it, to say the least, confusing.
Despite the laughter it provokes, the card expresses the ideology of "ageism" that predominates in Western culture, particularly in the United States. The home of celebrity culture - a phenomenon that only exists thanks to photography, movies, television and the Internet - the United States embodies the cult of staying young no matter what. The United States embodies the cult of staying young no matter what: thanks to plastic surgery, extreme exercise and the alteration of images through PhotoShop or any other technology that makes people look younger. People are expected to have the perfect body, whatever it takes. The motto of "Perfect mind, perfect body" (?Perfect mind, perfect body?) is an Internet site to sell the "natural" supplements that have proliferated enormously in the United States and are the advertisements that fund the right-wing networks. However, to me, that slogan reminds me of the Smothers Brothers, TV comedians who were censored in the 1960s for opposing the Vietnam War, "Perfect Mind, Perfect Body, Take Your Pick" (Perfect mind, perfect body?.take your pick?).
The essence of youth culture is that NEW is always better. Those of us who remember that we could count on products we already knew and trusted are constantly frustrated and disappointed when we find that what we knew is no longer useful, whether it is food, clothing or technology. The old cliché, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" (?If it ain?t broke, don?t fix it?), has been wrecked by the tidal wave of the capitalist need to create markets. We may be totally bored, fed up, satiated and stuffed with food, drink, advertisements and the violent and bitter fruits of the culture industry, but many of the most creative minds of our time are dedicated to keeping us as perpetual consumers to prevent overproduction by creating a demand for unnecessary products.
The constant flow of new technologies is particularly disruptive for many people over 70. New gadgets and applications are continually being invented, by young people for young people. The effect on us is one of frustration caused by the need to incessantly adapt to new technologies. I believe the goal for the youth is to distract them from thinking seriously about the decaying world we live in while they download whatever a new millionaire has created. Youth suffer from an overload of ?information? and distractions caused by focusing on unnecessary and meaningless trifles.
I have been told that those of us who are in our 70s and 80s are "stuck in the past" (?stuck in the past?), but I am tempted to assert that those who did not live through the late 1960s and early 1970s probably have difficulty understanding the concrete experiences and personal choices that can change the way we see and act in the world. I suspect that someone who did not live through that period is "trapped in the perpetual present" that does not allow them to imagine alternatives to capitalism, imperialism and neoliberalism. Their limitations of thought are reflected in modern music, in which the tonal range has been greatly reduced, even to non-music such as rap. Those of us who experienced and participated in the last great anti-imperialist movements saw possibilities that today are unimaginable, despite the ecological disaster and the extraordinary collapse of liberal democracy and social policies such as progressive taxation, decent wages, affordable childcare and free education.
Those of us who lived through those times and participated in the movements that redefined our culture are aging. We are seen as sharing some negative attributes, such as senility, rigid thinking and beliefs. Of course, our brains are no longer as fast as they were in our youth. However, according to research published in the New England Journal of Medicinegains in flexibility. The peak of human intellectual activity occurs around the age of 70, when the brain functions at full strength because the interaction of the right and left hemispheres of the brain becomes harmonious, which expands our creative possibilities. Therefore, with age, we are more likely to make the right decisions and less exposed to negative emotions. The old man or woman's brain chooses the path that consumes the least energy, eliminates the unnecessary and leaves only the right options to solve the problem. A study was conducted in which different age groups participated. Young people were confused by the multiple possibilities of the tests, while those over 60 years of age gave the correct answers.
Feminist Anna Freixas, author of the book, Old me: survival tips for free beings (2021) affirms: "we are interesting old people, what happens is that you have to know how to listen and be close to know how to take advantage of this wealth. We are not illiterate, we have gone to university, we have been pioneers in all the social movements with enormous experience, and we have achieved all the rights that others now boast of?
The problem, of course, is that many young people are so plugged into their constant innovation tripe that they don't have time to listen.
Old age is treated as if it were a disease or a problem. In fact, it should be understood as one of the three fundamental stages of life and may be the longest, most complex and most varied for some people. Ageism causes younger people to see us as less human or infantilizes us, but barring an untimely death, old age is the destiny that everyone will experience, although few will live it enthusiastically. For some people, however, old age can offer new opportunities for work, fun, family, leisure, education and contributions, rather than the familiar superficiality of images of baldness and gray hair, stooped posture and slow steps, wrinkles, canes and hearing aids, and a life spent in front of the television.
For those who have had the good fortune to discover what they like to do and the tenacity to carry it out, old age offers the satisfaction of having realized the dreams for which they have lived and to which they have given themselves. Tell me how you age and I will tell you how you have lived. Having reached the end of our season of life, we can free ourselves from the hollow ambitions and vanities of social recognition because we are who we have become, although that does not negate the possibilities of setting fascinating new goals, given the freedom that many older people enjoy by not having to worry about raising children or having the stress of earning a living.
In the end, old age can be fabulous if we take the journey consciously, by maintaining our physical health through exercise, our mental health by using our brains, and our existential health by knowing exactly how we want to spend the time we have left.
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