Growing old

Subject: Growing old

What a crazy, mixed up set of conflicting emotions we are, grappling our mood swings, full of good intentions, we easily fall into a cleft of unintended consequences. Our willingness to define our lives by the custom of our experience means we are tied to the conventions we gathered through our life passage, unable it seems to change and reinvent ourselves to new surroundings. 
Perhaps this is our strength. To keep on being true to our old beliefs, shutting out troubling new trends of thought and belief which assail our convictions. Perhaps our ability to remain true to our old values has the smack of resolution, a commitment to the altar of a life times set of beliefs on which we built our lives.
Of course we see the changes all around us.  The swing away from our norms to new norms which are worn by today's people as easily and with the same surety as the norms we accepted when we were young and flexible.
The term flexible is, in its self a questionable term if you have grown through the various stages of life with the over riding values which now are challenged by the many. It's a statistical inevitability that you will become a minority as you grow old, the new populating the space you occupied, drowning out your claim to be heard. 
And so as we drift into obscurity, as we lose our importance as an individually respected  personality and start to become a stereotype, a picture of amusement, a 'doddering oldie', the joints stiffening, the mind losing its focus, we reach our "sell by date".
The most difficult transition is between us and our children. For so long their protector they have if they wish to assume this role just at a time when it's inconvenient. 
There is also the difference of the relationship not being comparative. The love you had for your baby which was based on the frailty of the new born and your overwhelming power to effect outcomes with the responsibility you now seem to have for an old person especially if that person is a parent. The symbiosis which comes from a child and its parent at the start of life is in part the excitement of life repeating itself. We marvel at our ability to reinvent ourselves to the role of parent and the more or less predictable stages children go through as they pass through and out of our influence. In passing out of our grasp they signal their independence and it's that same independence which is threatened when the old become ever more infirmed and themselves need support.
Society used to provide a blanket care system. Neighbours, having known each other for years acted as a surrogate support system with only the occasional visit to see how Mom or Dad are doing. As the young flee to all corners of the globe to seek their own sense of fulfilment, the old supporting and endorsing this opportunity to make a success of their lives, we lose the cohesion of the social continuity.
Some societies maintain a strict mechanism of social responsibility with family tied to each other until death do they part. The household is a reflection of the structure of this family bond with parents and even grandparents in place within the home as part of a societal norm. Even the hierarchy is maintained to a degree so that the implicit respect for age and gender is maintained. Religion is often the force behind this structure, the 'commandments' set in a time before the aeroplane made flight and dispersion possible.
Secular independence and the reinvention of norms each generation makes custom redundant. We are all individuals and each stage of life is a 'make or break' challenge . It's good to evolve and not stagnate but this embodiment of evolution is more weighted towards the young and leaves many unanswered questions as we grow old.  




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