The Indifference of Decrepitude and Being Over Sixty
Ouch. Does being indifferent to much that is happening in the world mean I'm decrepit? I prefer to believe it is simply indifference without the decrepitude. One can’t pay attention to everything. I can’t write essays, make soup and take our coonhound, Posie, for walks and still find time to read about Spain’s budgetary challenges.
Simone de Beauvoir, the late French philosopher, teacher, novelist, author of the The Second Sex and famously great intellect, used that disturbingly memorable phrase -- the indifference of decrepitude -- in her autobiography. She referred to a future stage of life, if she lived long enough, when she would no longer have the mental acuity, energy, or even interest, to continue writing about her life. To ensure that wouldn't happen, she published the final volume of her autobiography, All Said and Done, when she was only 64 – an age when male celebrities have babies with long blonde starlets forty years younger than themselves.
Simone de Beauvoir led a fantastic life – free as an adult, independent, unconventional, stimulating and rich in many ways. It seems fair to say that compared to hers, many lives have been lived in figurative straitjackets. When one reads about her intellectual achievements, international travels, personal encounters, relationships, projects and adventures, one can hardly avoid a pang of desperation and the question: oh, God, where did I go wrong?
So it is easy to understand why Simone de Beauvoir regarded old age as an abyss compared to the sumptuous years of her life. Unsurprisingly she believed that death was a more natural and acceptable stage of life than many years of simply being old, a process likely to be fraught with infirmities and indignities. She died of pneumonia at the age of 78, getting her once-stated wish to not become a very old lady.
Provided we are still healthy after sixty, the rest of can actually benefit from not having lived particularly rich lives, That is because we are likely to still be hungry. The years after sixty might be quite happy, productive and free. During the younger years, full as they probably were of responsibility, constraints and compromises, there may have been no opportunity to follow one’s dream.
Beauvoir's thesis about age included the contention that anyone who didn't die by around age sixty would face an isolated life of disheartening character. She was not entirely wrong about that. One becomes susceptible to feelings of pointlessness and may find it hard to muster enthusiasm for current events, new technology, fashion, popular music, etc. One senses (with good reason) that one is being left behind by the world. On top of that is the diminishment of personal energy precisely at a time of life when one needs energy to accomplish objectives (or simply be able to stay awake at the theater), given the brevity of one’s future.
However, forewarned is forearmed. If you already know about a nearly-inevitable condition, your cognizance should be sufficient impetus to cultivate a good quality of life after age sixty. In fact, at that age a person should have a sense of entering a whole new world, with new friends of appropriate age, and new interests.
It is wise to give the matter the thought it deserves. One may feel saddened by having to let go of something, but that is why one needs new projects, or even passions, to replace interests that are no longer sensible to hold onto. Perhaps in earlier years you made your own clothes. Now, it takes forever just to thread a needle because your eyesight is no longer sharp, and the thought of wrestling with a length of fabric is depressingly daunting. Swimming can take the place of jogging or tennis. A bus trip with a group may have more appeal than a tiring drive.
All that is a far cry from both indifference and decrepitude. Indifference to the latest fashions occurs mainly because one already has a complete wardrobe and is wise enough to appreciate it – not because one is mentally decrepit and wears a bathrobe to the grocery store. It certainly might improve one as a conversationalist to be up on current events, but the slim likelihood of serious interest in them after age 60 was well illustrated by something my father said at that age when I offered him a subscription to a major news magazine. “That’s very thoughtful, Julie, but no thanks," he said. "All that stuff comes and goes. Who today remembers the Free City of Danzig?” Having served in the Navy in the Second World War, he didn’t care about some 1980 revolution in Bubangi or about some tacky senator getting caught with what the late Wilbur Mills identified with well-remembered succinctness as “a live boy or dead girl.” The Arab-Israeli problem, like the Free City of Danzig in its time, may be worthy of your attention, but since you are never going to influence the outcome (if there ever is one) why waste precious time and effort on it? You’re not decrepit – you are seizing your earned right to be indifferent to certain things in order to save scarce time for others.
Turn your circumstances to your advantage. Cultivate a taste for that which you are able to do. Give away the ice skates you haven’t worn for thirty years and become a champion Scrabble player. Read and write. Become a better cook. In the event you decide to study 16th century North America, you will enjoy being one of about three people in the whole world who know that history.
Even when you are truly decrepit some day – and you will be, in some way, if you don’t die first – you will still be able to enjoy your cup of tea by the window and the company of anyone whose company you are fortunate enough to have. Life is over when it’s over, and not before.
