By S. Jayasankaran
When he was 24, Paul Simon wrote Old Friends, a hauntingly beautiful song, a line of which went: How terribly strange to be 70. It was from the much-acclaimed Bookends album.
When you’re so young, 70 is light-years away. Simon’s 84: It must be surreal listening to the song now.
Age brings perspective.
I think looking 60 is great – only because I’m rubbing shoulders with 70.
I’m just thankful I only have to grow old once: I don’t think I could do it twice.
The problem with the process is that it’s been sanitised to make it more palatable, as if ironing out its wrinkles would magically make the slow disintegration of body and, sometimes, mind wholesome and natural.
It’s why we have thinkers like Oliver Wendell Holmes rhapsodising about being “70 years young.” Then there’s this moron who warbled about youth being “the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.”
Maybe to Picasso, sketching an elderly fisherman bronzed by the sun and too much wine. Bah, humbug to the rest of us.
I think the poet Yeats knew where it was at: “The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”
Joan Rivers was more succinct: “Age sucks!” It’s just a step away from loose skin, dribbling and senility.
To be sure, it can be a state of mind. I mean, if you are reasonably healthy, then it only matters if you are cheese. In Dr Mahathir’s case, he only realised he was geriatric when the candles on his cake resembled a prairie fire.
There are certain things about getting old that the young will never grasp…until they get there.
Example: there was this Netflix series, The Kaminsky Method. Starring Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin, it was a portrait of ageing masculinity and friendship between two men.
My friends all loved it, but it left the younger generation – my daughter, my nephews and nieces – cold. Apparently, there’s an unending generation gap.
I suppose that’s why they call the younger generation a group that’s alike in many disrespects.
This “getting old” business is sneaky too: like a fog, it creeps up on you. There you are, just minding your business and, wham, you’re 40.
I was incredulous and not a little outraged when that happened. OK, the outrage stemmed from the fact that it was my birthday, but it was also Lent and I was off the booze.
Once you’re over the forties, you’d be surprised how rapidly everything speeds up. Suddenly, everything’s in fast-forward mode, and you’ve officially hit Life In The Fast Lane.
This does not mean what it does in the West – partying and living it up. It simply means you’ve entered life’s merry-go-round, and it’s up to you to keep it merry.
At least as merry as a man in his late 60s can shape it. Either way, the alternative isn’t worth dwelling on.
Don’t get me wrong. There are some benefits. I get discounts on rail and bus tickets. A girl actually offered me her seat on the Aerotrain the other day. Of course, I took it: you never can tell.
There are other benefits. Have you noticed that the older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for?
Nor do we have to worry about avoiding temptation. At my age, it avoids me like the plague.
And there are the occasional fillips. In two weeks, I have to attend the birthday of an old friend. Old is the operative word here: he’s as old as some trees in Taman Negara. And, occasionally, he addresses me as “you young whipper-snapper.”
It is during those moments when I am in my element.
WE