GUEST POST by TOM SANTULLI
“Age puzzles me. I thought it was a quiet time. My seventies were interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate; I grow more intense with age.”
~ Florida Pier Scott-Maxwell, playwright, author, psychologist; d. 1979
May Sarton asked, ‘What is the opposite of “growing old?” and wondered if perhaps it was “to wither.”
Finding my footing in these troubling moments in the U S is a struggle: a nearby bumper sticker, “Subvert The Dominant Paradigm.”
I’m one of 56 million folks over 65 – what ought I to be doing?
An Irish friend in school often used ‘fierce’ and ‘fiercely’ in conversation.
Such words had conjured up monsters in the night, storms to be feared. But Rory meant them in a different way: with intensity, with commitment, with skill: ‘the test was fierce’ ~ challenging, hard; ‘the opponent played fiercely’ ~ honorably, with dignity.
These times are challenging for many, including the millions of us with the more limited resources and choices which accompany growing older.
What am I doing?
Assessing my resources – financial, physical, emotional – and my connections – family and beyond.
Looking to reliable news sources – truthful, without sensationalization or fear-mongering – and watching what actually happens around me and in the world, not listening to provocative, mean-spirited words and threats.
Let’s be clear: the emerging “paradigm” is itself subversive. Its ideologically-driven goal is to paralyze and dismember democracy; it’s neither just nor equitable. Driven by autocrats and emerging technofeudalist oligarchs, it thrives on chaos and exacerbates the vulnerabilities of an uninformed public.
I must:
-
re-discover my values, and what undergirds them;
-
insure that my actions day to day reflect them, particularly ’retaining the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, … between justice and crime;’
-
commit deeply to family and those about whom I care.
And as I’m able, participate in organized, positive actions: support those younger and older who are speaking truth in the face of corrupted power… in solidarity with the community – libraries, centers, co-ops, actions, political groups challenging the corrosive, rotting status quo…
Daily, I shall remind myself how lucky I’ve been; keep my brain active – to wonder, play, explore, experiment, to appreciate the present moment, all the while accepting its evanescence; and seek wisdom and integrity – the ongoing, quite individual journey which “no one can undertake for us, an effort which no one can spare us.” (Proust)
Throughout, restore myself–in the natural world, in writing, reading, art – and rest up for the next moment, so that my aging doesn’t become the ‘slow death’, the gradual disassembling of a life’s experiences, as many have been taught to see it.
At eighty I’m getting my second wind, picking up strength as I go… perhaps it’s a wisdom – it’s surely a commitment to young people, to truth and to justice – age, ironically, frees me from the shackles of convention, career, goals… from deceit and games.
Sarton again, at 75: “Withering perhaps? It is I assume quite easy to wither into old age, and hard to grow into it.”
Dylan Thomas – through his words on approaching the inscrutable may seem dark and angry – said it best –
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Tom Santulli finds strength in the sea, solitude, Rievaulx Abbey, in growing humility regained as a physician…embraces Frost’s directness, black and white photography’s elegance, Hawksmoor’s audacity, Turner’s mystery, Merwin’s soul, the natural world and Berry’s grace… is thankful for curiosity, Buddhist wisdom, the generosity of others, and especially for children everywhere.