Two weeks ago I turned seventy five. And as often happens, as ones life reaches beyond its biblical allotted three scores and ten, your thoughts turn inevitably to the past. What has life taught, what surprised you, what gave you unalloyed joy and what brought grief?
The foremost is the love of your family. The love of family is life's greatest blessing.
Achievements. You may have been a success in your life but all you remember often are its high and low points, forgetting the misfortunes in the midst of them all. And when your friends honor you, it gives you a special joy that warms your heart.
Kindness is a surprisingly powerful emotion. A kind word or action sometimes has consequences that you never imagined. It may be a simple gesture- once trapped in Hanoi in the early days when hotel rooms were scarce, I offered to share my room with a colleague. I thought nothing of it, but he didn't and remained a loyal friend for the rest of our careers.
Surprisingly, an unkind word seems to rankle for a surprisingly long time.A friend who was staying in my house remarked casually that in Canada Indians were the most hated and despised group. I remembered that insult for a very long time especially since he said it in front of my family implying a superiority for his kind and a not so subtle put down of my kind.
Friendship is a rare gem to be won and treasured - I have a few friends that have been with me for over five decades and each one is a treasure.
Health. Your physical health comes back to haunt you in your old age if you have not kept it well.
Reading and writing -if that is your gift- brings a new world to you.
Gentle tolerance- little things that used to irritate you - you learn to brush aside.
Peacefulness. Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward & learning to enjoy whatever life has given you.
The gentle art of silence. Oftentimes all it needs is a period of silent contemplation. Sitting on my terrace looking at the fiery red sunsets in the west, the sounds of whirring medical helicopters on way to the nearest hospital. Just sitting at peace with the world forgetting the painful past and refusing to muse on the future. Just sitting quietly in the present till sadness slowly dissolves and so that I can think of the good fortune god has seen fit to bestow on me.
New beginings. The last few weeks I have had the good fortune to spend time with my two and half year old grandson. His insatiable curiousity, his love for new things, his perpetual"Why" has taught me many a lesson. Life has so much left to teach you. Indeed so many have started their lives anew at seventy. I started writing when I turned seventy. In the past five years I have written over 500 columns and blogs.I have written nine books and am now venturing on my first novel. I am even toying with penning a murder mystery.
All inspired by the poet Longfellow
“Whatever poet, orator, or sage
May say of it, old age is still old age.
It is the waning, not the crescent moon;
The dusk of evening, not the blaze of noon;
It is not strength, but weakness; not desire,
But its surcease; not the fierce heat of fire,
The burning and consuming element,
But that of ashes and of embers spent,
In which some living sparks we still discern,
Enough to warm, but not enough to burn. “
And yet Longfellow says, “nothing is too late
Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.
Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles
Wrote his grand Oedipus, and Simonides
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers,
When each had numbered more than fourscore years,
And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten,
Had but begun his Characters of Men.
Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales,
At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed Faust when eighty years were past."
These are indeed exceptions; but they show
" How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow
Into the arctic regions of our lives.
Where little else than life itself survives.”
In any case, what choice do we have as old age approaches? As the poet says:
“Shall we sit idly down and say
The night hath come; it is no longer day?"
Or shall we say instead that"
" the night hath not yet come; we are not quite
C"ut off from labor by the failing light;
Something remains for us to do or dare;
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear;
Not Oedipus Coloneus, or Greek Ode,
Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode
Out of the gateway of the Tabard Inn,
But other something, would we but begin;
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. “
I remembered what I had written about the conquest of old age blues and the old. And about the people who had encountered old age with dignity and courage. Even while they suffered physically as most of us do as we age, they rarely talked or bemoaned their physical ailments; while they were proud of their past achievements, they rarely dwelt overmuch on them; while they regretted the loss of sensory delights of youth, they compensated the quantity of the past with the quality of the present; they did not shy away from discussing death but once they had taken care of all of its implications on their loved ones, they rarely mentioned it again. But what consumed them all was their latest passion – be it writing, teaching, volunteering, and learning the latest in science and technology. Contrary to all religious precepts about detachment in old age, these were people who were full of passion and passionate intensity. None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
They were also the people who wanted “to die young at a ripe old age”.
The foremost is the love of your family. The love of family is life's greatest blessing.
Achievements. You may have been a success in your life but all you remember often are its high and low points, forgetting the misfortunes in the midst of them all. And when your friends honor you, it gives you a special joy that warms your heart.
Kindness is a surprisingly powerful emotion. A kind word or action sometimes has consequences that you never imagined. It may be a simple gesture- once trapped in Hanoi in the early days when hotel rooms were scarce, I offered to share my room with a colleague. I thought nothing of it, but he didn't and remained a loyal friend for the rest of our careers.
Surprisingly, an unkind word seems to rankle for a surprisingly long time.A friend who was staying in my house remarked casually that in Canada Indians were the most hated and despised group. I remembered that insult for a very long time especially since he said it in front of my family implying a superiority for his kind and a not so subtle put down of my kind.
Friendship is a rare gem to be won and treasured - I have a few friends that have been with me for over five decades and each one is a treasure.
Health. Your physical health comes back to haunt you in your old age if you have not kept it well.
Reading and writing -if that is your gift- brings a new world to you.
Gentle tolerance- little things that used to irritate you - you learn to brush aside.
Peacefulness. Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward & learning to enjoy whatever life has given you.
The gentle art of silence. Oftentimes all it needs is a period of silent contemplation. Sitting on my terrace looking at the fiery red sunsets in the west, the sounds of whirring medical helicopters on way to the nearest hospital. Just sitting at peace with the world forgetting the painful past and refusing to muse on the future. Just sitting quietly in the present till sadness slowly dissolves and so that I can think of the good fortune god has seen fit to bestow on me.
New beginings. The last few weeks I have had the good fortune to spend time with my two and half year old grandson. His insatiable curiousity, his love for new things, his perpetual"Why" has taught me many a lesson. Life has so much left to teach you. Indeed so many have started their lives anew at seventy. I started writing when I turned seventy. In the past five years I have written over 500 columns and blogs.I have written nine books and am now venturing on my first novel. I am even toying with penning a murder mystery.
All inspired by the poet Longfellow
“Whatever poet, orator, or sage
May say of it, old age is still old age.
It is the waning, not the crescent moon;
The dusk of evening, not the blaze of noon;
It is not strength, but weakness; not desire,
But its surcease; not the fierce heat of fire,
The burning and consuming element,
But that of ashes and of embers spent,
In which some living sparks we still discern,
Enough to warm, but not enough to burn. “
And yet Longfellow says, “nothing is too late
Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.
Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles
Wrote his grand Oedipus, and Simonides
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers,
When each had numbered more than fourscore years,
And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten,
Had but begun his Characters of Men.
Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales,
At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed Faust when eighty years were past."
These are indeed exceptions; but they show
" How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow
Into the arctic regions of our lives.
Where little else than life itself survives.”
In any case, what choice do we have as old age approaches? As the poet says:
“Shall we sit idly down and say
The night hath come; it is no longer day?"
Or shall we say instead that"
" the night hath not yet come; we are not quite
C"ut off from labor by the failing light;
Something remains for us to do or dare;
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear;
Not Oedipus Coloneus, or Greek Ode,
Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode
Out of the gateway of the Tabard Inn,
But other something, would we but begin;
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. “
I remembered what I had written about the conquest of old age blues and the old. And about the people who had encountered old age with dignity and courage. Even while they suffered physically as most of us do as we age, they rarely talked or bemoaned their physical ailments; while they were proud of their past achievements, they rarely dwelt overmuch on them; while they regretted the loss of sensory delights of youth, they compensated the quantity of the past with the quality of the present; they did not shy away from discussing death but once they had taken care of all of its implications on their loved ones, they rarely mentioned it again. But what consumed them all was their latest passion – be it writing, teaching, volunteering, and learning the latest in science and technology. Contrary to all religious precepts about detachment in old age, these were people who were full of passion and passionate intensity. None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
They were also the people who wanted “to die young at a ripe old age”.
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