book 44 – How to Age
This might be the most important book I read during this past year. Anne Karpf challenges our way of looking at ageing (and death) as something to be avoided by aggressively pursuing youth and proposes that we are simply setting ourselves up for greater disappointment when age does finally catch up, as it must inevitably do.
Karpf argues that we have created a prejudice against our future selves and in doing so, we demonize all elderly people (that is, anyone older than we currently are). One way in which we have done this in modern times is to medicalize ageing and death, citing that since 1951 nobody in the USA has died of “old age”. In fact, it is illegal to cite “natural causes” under cause of death on death certificates in the USA. This leads to the false belief that ageing can be vanquished and we see old people as unforgivably failing to do so.
More importantly, she offers compelling arguments that embracing and celebrating your ageing leads to a fuller life and greater happiness. She provides many examples of people “learning new tricks” at ages that we might consider to be “old dogs”, as well as examples of people completely redefining the direction of their life at the age of 50, or 60 or even 70 or 80! These people keep changing and learning, not because they think about how much or how little time they have left, but because as long as they do so, they are learning and are fulfilled. What a wonderful way to look approach life. Not that it’s never too late to start something new, but that the expression “it’s never too late” doesn’t even exist!
On a personal level, the book has me thinking about some of the ways in which my friends discuss our middle age. “You don’t look 50” is a common one, to which I now feel obliged to respond “Yes I do, because I’m 50 and this is exactly what 50 looks like”. I also need to give some thought to what should be reasonable boundaries around grooming and appearance. Am I upholding a philosophy of a positive lookout on ageing if I dye my hair (god, I hope the answer to this one is yes)? And what about facial hair removal? Botox? Surgery? I suspect the answer is in finding a balance between feeling good about how I look and requiring that I look younger than my actual age.
I’ll leave this post with one of my favourite quotes from the book: “People who cannot look ahead as they grow older back into the future so all they see is the past” – Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Rating: Buy it, and a copy for all of your friends (I just did). And live well.
