Old age, the final frontier

There is a point in the trajectory of life when growing up becomes growing old. Even though this point is usually defined by chronological time – usually around the age of 65 years – it is better defined by the way we feel than by how long we have lived. There are people who feel old long before the age of 65 years and there are those who still feel young many years after this age. The state of our health plays a big role in how we feel at any age.

If infancy and childhood are the opening games of life, and adulthood its middle game, then old age will be the endgame. Each stage has its unique tasks. One of the tasks in old age will be to ensure wellbeing till the exit gate. While good physical health does contribute to wellbeing, it does not guarantee it. Some of the ingredients for wellbeing in old age, according to available scientific literature, are having good relationships, being physically active, learning new things, being kind to others, and being grateful for what one has. I wish to add that wellbeing also requires us to have a sense of purpose – a feeling that one is still contributing something useful to the world as an older adult.

J.K. Rowling wrote in her book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” The choices we make to generate wellbeing in old age will be more about changing the way we respond to circumstances than about changing the circumstances themselves. Chess teaches us that excitement is sustained in the endgame, despite losses, by choosing to focus on moving towards a worthy goal. Similarly, having a value for death and dying will ensure that we have a worthy goal in old age. Aging will then be seen as a purposeful movement towards what lies beyond. The poet John Milton, in Paradise Lost, wrote that the mind can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven. This is a recognition of the power of the way we think. Older adults may need to change some of their habitual ways of thinking to maintain wellbeing.

Evolution created our brains in 3 stages. The first, called the reptilian brain, was to ensure survival. Next came the mammalian brain with its ability to generate emotions. Through emotions, we could make choices beyond the fight-or-flight responses of reptiles. Finally, the ability for cognitive activities like intelligent reasoning, abstract thinking, creativity, and self-reflection came to us through the neocortex, which is that part of the brain unique to mammals and most highly developed in human beings. The neocortex has enabled humans to understand the laws that govern the working of their bodies and that of the universe. Evolution had also programmed fear, and a default tendency towards discontentment, into us because fear enables survival, and discontentment enables striving towards better things. In old age, we will need cognitive skills to remove this fear and discontentment and generate wellbeing. The ability to change ingrained habits of the mind is a skill that needs to be learnt.

There are happiness-producing circuits and distress-producing circuits in the brain. The task before older adults is to create patterns of thinking that strengthen the happiness-producing circuits. Young people tend to generate happiness through their work and social interactions. Their self-esteem often comes from their earning ability. When one is old, these external sources of happiness are likely to change. It then becomes necessary to generate happiness from within for continued wellbeing.  The nineteenth century American poet and writer Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “what lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.” I think he was referring to our cognitive abilities which enable us to choose how we respond to any given set of circumstances. The practice of mindfulness is one way in which we can enable the brain to rewire itself and remove our distress-producing, conditioned ways of thinking.  

Many people find a value for death and dying through their religious beliefs. Physics tells us that mass and energy are interconvertible. Without following any dogma, we can see that each birth is a singularity where energy converts to mass and each death is that point where mass returns to its original state of energy. Thinking of our lives as a dance between mass and energy can be helpful in making us less afraid of death.  

From an evolutionary perspective, survival of an individual is only beneficial if it enables survival of the species. This means that everyone is like a small cog in the big wheel of the universe and is meant to contribute something useful to others. In a world where there is always some kind of suffering, transmitting goodwill and good cheer through thoughts, words, and actions, is one way to be useful. Thinking of myself as a transmitter of goodwill is a cognitive practice that I have found useful for generating wellbeing.    

Infancy, childhood, adulthood, and old age are the stages we pass through in the spectrum of life. The energy within a single fertilised cell initiates this growth and transformation. Old age is the time when this life-sustaining and life-transforming energy prepares to return to its source. We are, in the words of the twentieth century philosopher, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “spiritual beings having a human experience”. This makes sense when we understand spiritual as referring to the life-sustaining energy within us.