The best is yet to be.
BLOG: Labanya’s Curiosity Shop
By Labanya Mookerjee
PHILADELPHIA: If there was one thing that I unabashedly loathed while growing up in the American school system, it was the staple custom of serenading senior citizens in their retirement homes around Christmas time.
Of course, as a kid, I was more than glad to have a chance to escape the ever-greying brick walls of my school, but even then, there seemed something horribly patronizing, maybe even downright abusive, of subjecting seniors to the screeching clamor of children.
But looking back, the entire convention seems to me to be very revealing of our own self-defeating and dehumanizing conceptions of the elderly.
American society has always been about the youth, the future, the next innovation, the next leader, even before the present era has passed. And, in the face of such a forward-looking culture (which, don’t get me wrong, is also one of the best things about this nation), the elderly are imposed with awful assumptions.
For instance, in most TV shows and movies, they are either perpetually interested in playing bingo or are often disabled, cranky, and nonsensical…void of any measurable purpose in society.
As is the case with most oppressive stereotypes, these devastating notions about the elderly are cultivated to fuel the hungry industries that ravenously capitalize on the notion that the elderly are invalid and bored burdens on society (for example, senior centers, pharmaceutical companies, and especially shopping centers).
Dr. Eric Fromm, the acclaimed, 20th century German social psychologist, discusses in his “Psychological Problems of Aging” that our industrialized society has bred a new type of human being called the “homo consumens—the consumer man whose main interest becomes, aside from working from nine to five, to consume…certainly, for those who sell…they try to promote the consumer spirit as much as they can.”
Fromm goes on to write that he fears that as a consequence of such a profit-oriented culture, the aged might become “super-consumers,” making consumption their main business.
Of course as a psychologist, Fromm also discusses the mental and emotional impetus behind the shopaholic behavior; he says that “behind this urge to consume there is an inner vacuity—a sense of emptiness…a sense of depression, a sense of loneliness.”
And, he’s right. I’d say that the elderly are almost perceived by society as non-humans, stashed away at the barren edges of community, as the youth-driven industries of capitalism eagerly seek to soak out their wallets and their humanity.
But, what I love about Fromm since the day that I picked up his essays years ago, is that he returns the power to the hands of the aged.
He admits that old age is a “great challenge,” while also emphasizing that it’s also a “great chance. It could be the best time a man ever had because he is freed from the task of making a living… he is freed from the need to please a superior in order to be promoted…The older person really has a chance to live, to be alive, to make living his main business.”
The elderly have the chance to meditate on their inner consciousness, character, and spiritual health—all of which had most likely been neglected in their younger, busier days.
Laozi, considered the leader and spiritual deity of Daoism (folklore has it that he was born as an old, bearded man), suggests that the path to equality and true happiness involves the transcendence of socially-imposed limitations that hinder and overwhelm the inborn spirit of humanity—it’s a lesson applicable to all, young and old.
However, since old age is becoming increasingly stigmatized worldwide and as none of us are getting any younger, I think it’s important at this moment to pause and remember that the body does not define the spirit and that the soul is evergreen, ever-youthful.
(Labanya Mookerjee graduated with high distinction from Penn State this year with degrees in English Literature, American Studies and Civic Engagement. She is currently teaching English at the Writing Studio in Penn State Brandywine and is the assistant of the Director of the Schreyer and Cooper Honors Programs. She has received the Tim Marks scholarship for the Arts, the Academic Excellence Award and the 2013 Francis J. Ryan award for “Best Undergraduate Research Paper” at Eastern American Studies Association Conference. She is involved with fund-raising for Art Programs in inner-city, Philadelphia schools.)
To contact the author, e-mail: editor@americanbazaaronline.com