Ageing is the ultimate test of the human spirit
There's something rather splendid about watching the human machine wind down with all the grace of a Victorian music box that's been dropped down a flight of stairs. As someone who has made a belated writing career of being by terms empathetic and disagreeable, I find myself increasingly fascinated and quietly foreboding of this final act of our mortal comedy where the body betrays us with the enthusiasm of a tabloid journalist with a royal scandal.
The distinguished American geriatrician Felix Silverstone - a man who spent his career studying the very thing that would eventually catch up with him - offers us a masterclass in what Americans would call "ageing in place". There he sits in his retirement community, like a latter-day King Lear with an electronic stethoscope, ministering to his beloved wife while his own corpus gradually betrays him with all the subtlety of a slowly deflating balloon.
In its infinite wisdom, the medical establishment has decided that geriatrics is about as fashionable as last week's sliced pan. Young doctors, eager for money and a touch of social glamour, are fleeing to plastic surgery faster than Instagram influencers abandon failed hashtags. They'd instead pump Botox into crow's feet then learn how to keep grandma from face-planting into her Sunday roast. This section of the medical profession has developed a conflicted relationship with ageing, treating it like a particularly generous cash cow rather than the universal condition it inevitably becomes.
But here's the rub: we're all heading toward this particular finish line, assuming we're lucky enough to make it. The alternative, as they say, is considerably less appealing. Our bodies, those treacherous vessels of consciousness, begin their betrayal with the subtle dignity of a slowly deflating soufflé. First, the eyes go, then the knees (those faithful servants of our younger adventures), and finally – with exquisite cosmic irony – we forget why we walked into a room just as we perfect the art of getting there without falling over.
The humiliating statistics tell us that by 85, 40% of us will have no teeth at all - a rather inconvenient development for a species that has elevated gastronomy to a staple of televised viewing. We are destined to drool at our flatscreens, salivating over textures and vegetables served al dente. The culinary world will have to adapt to a clientele whose relationship with chewing has become more theoretical than practical.
Yet there's something rather magnificent about those who rage against the dying of the light with nothing more than a walker and a wicked sense of humour. I know of one nonagenarian, disenchanted with our cultural decline, who watches reruns of 'Emmerdale' and 'Heartbeat' ad nauseam, preferring the cultured innocence of 1990s' rural life to our frenetic, digitally soaked millennial first quarter. There's more dignity in the careful navigation of her circumscribed daily routine than in all the manufactured dramas of youth.
The true art of ageing well lies not in fighting the inevitable but adapting to it with the grace that makes even getting on and off a toilet seat look like a carefully choreographed performance piece. We might not be able to leap like gazelles anymore, but we can certainly perfect the art of the strategic sit-down. The choreography required would put the Royal Ballet to shame: the careful pivot, the strategic hand placement, the silent prayer to whatever deity might prevent one's hip from choosing this particular moment to demonstrate its obsolescence.
It's a performance piece that plays out countless times daily across our towns and villages yet rarely receives the artistic appreciation it deserves. Every bodily movement involves careful consideration of gravity, its attendant physics and probability, a danger-filled calculation of risk versus reward.
With its obsession with youth and vitality, the modern world seems particularly ill-equipped to handle the realities of ageing. Mobile aids proliferate and become ever more ingenious, yet we've created a society that moves at the speed of Twitter but expects our elders to navigate it at the pace of a Sunday afternoon game of bridge. The disconnect is both comic and tragic, like watching someone try to run a marathon in bedroom slippers.
And what about technology, which is supposed to be a great enabler of modern life? For the ageing population, each new device arrives like a particularly cryptic puzzle box, complete with buttons sized for fairy fingers and instructions written in a font that appears to have been designed by sadistic minimalists. The once familiar act of sending a text message becomes an adventure in mathematical ability, digging through layers of menus and settings with the determination of a coding engineer. And keep me from starting on the outrageous pace of AI and its ever-changing landscape; even the youngest have to run just to stay in the pack, tormented by a fever dream of time and effort-saving applications.
The ancient Stoics, those cheerful arbiters of fate, suggested that ageing gracefully requires cultivation from our earliest years. One imagines they might have added a footnote about cultivating a good orthopedist had they known what was coming. Their wisdom, however profound, couldn't have anticipated the peculiar challenges of ageing in a digital age, where every new technology arrives like a fresh insult to our declining learning curves.
Our collective inability to own the reality of geriatrics speaks volumes about our denial of ageing. It's as if we believe that by not studying it and acknowledging its universality, old age might somehow forget to come calling, like an unwanted dinner guest to whom we've deliberately failed to provide directions. Yet there's old Doctor Felix Silverstone, still practising his medicinal art well into his eighties, proving that adaptation and dignity are not mutually exclusive realities.
Our relationship with time itself changes as age brings with it a new awareness of time's finite nature, transforming each day into a careful calculation of energy expenditure versus potential reward. For the elderly, the simple decision to attend a social event becomes a complex algorithm involving weather conditions, driving distance, seating arrangements, and the likelihood of encountering stairs.
Memory, that fickle companion, plays its own peculiar games as we age. While we might struggle to recall a name to fit a familiar face, the lyrics to songs from decades ago emerge unbidden, complete with choreography we'd be wise not to attempt. Our brains, it seems, develop a perverse sense of priority, carefully preserving the second verse of some forgotten ditty while discarding such trivial information as where we left our keys.
The pharmaceutical industry, meanwhile, has transformed ageing into an endless parade of pill bottles, each promising to address some aspect of our decline while simultaneously introducing new and exciting side effects. The morning ritual of medication management requires the organisational skills of a military logistics expert and the dexterity of a safe-cracker. This plastic repository and its sliding compartments have become less of an accessory and more of a survival tool, with its little boxes holding the key to continued functionality.
The most poignant aspect of ageing is the gradual disappearance from the culture that once seemed to revolve around us. The world moves on with the relentless efficiency of a conveyor belt, leaving us to wonder who exactly Simon Harris is and why he matters. Yet this removal from the zeitgeist brings its own kind of freedom - the liberty to stop pretending we care about the latest trending hashtag or viral political posting.
In the end, for those with a robust constitution, ageing is less about decline and more about transformation. We may trade speed for wisdom, the impulse for consideration, and the frenetic energy of youth for something more measured and, perhaps, more meaningful. The best attitude, it seems, is to embrace this metamorphosis with the same spirit of adventure that once propelled us through our youth - just with outrageously more expensive health insurance and comfortable shoes.
As I observe my elders navigate their golden years with resigned precision, I'm reminded that ageing is certainly not for the faint of heart. It requires courage, humour, and the ability to keep one's dignity in the face of an ever-increasing dependency, providing life's final masterclass in adaptation, a daily exercise in finding new ways to accomplish old tasks, and, ultimately, a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.
So here's to growing old disgracefully, finding humour in the face of entropy, and treating each day as an adventure in creative problem-solving, hopefully aided and abetted by a loved one or at least a kind and sympathetic carer. After all, what is age but a reminder that we've successfully avoided all other alternatives? And if we must go gently to our dotage, let's do it with style, wit, and a marvellously awkward exit from an extended stay in the loo.
