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Here's to the old ...

Note: The following is another in a series of columns on subjects of a philosophical or ethical nature by a Schuyler County resident who prefers to go by the nom de plume of A. Moralis -- a reference to what the writer sees as the lack of a moral compass in this country during this rapidly changing Age of the Internet.

By A. Moralis

In times long past, in days of yore,
When age was honored, youth ignored.
When wisdom ruled, when stars aligned.
The decades earned were like fine wine.

With Christmas and New Year's Day having passed by once again, the traditional American philosophy holds that it is time to start anew.

January 1=fresh start.

And in that start is the understanding that we can do better, which is a nice goal, but not always possible. What we can do is strive for the best we can produce.

Alas, within that concept of new beginnings is an inherent American tendency toward the fresh, usually translated into youth. And in particular beautiful youth -- in movies, TV, modeling, whatever.

It was therefore refreshing to see an elder like Sandra Bullock have a banner year in her film career in 2009, and it is always reassuring to cast an eye in the direction of actress Meryl Streep, whose career has never slowed despite her six decades on Earth.

It really all comes down to this question with me: What is this need for the new that comes with every New Year, especially when we have plenty to celebrate in the aged around us -- whether it be aged beer, aged wine, authors who hit their stride at 60, politicians who mature at about that same age, or simply those among us who have gathered a lifetime of wisdom through hitting-and-missing, through experience, through living.

There is nothing wrong with youth, nor beauty, other than this: youth is unformed, and beauty is fleeting -- at least the stark, thin, unblemished kind pushed at us by our public relations machines.

Yes, time marches on, bringing with it graying hair, and wrinkles, and a slower pace. But what is wrong with that? What is wrong with showing the mileage experienced on the way to wisdom, on the way to understanding -- as best we can -- what life has to offer in all of its beautiful nuances?

We -- or at least a sizable portion of us -- live in the hope that our dreams will lead us ultimately to a magical realm called The Land of Beginning Again, where we are somehow renewed and recharged when our physicality and energy wane. This is the bedrock of the New Year celebration -- of our eternal human optimism. But underneath that optimism is the common-sense realization that such hope has little substance, and little point other than to help fuel those dreams.

Accordingly, the young eye the unrecharged elderly with some distrust, as though the aging process itself is contagious.

Well, contagious it isn't, but inevitable it is.

*****

"I don't want to ever grow old," one young woman once said to me. "The elderly carry this air about them ... it's like they're disintegrating or something."

"I can't imagine being sixty," another young woman said. "That's just so unbelievably ... old."

Those two comments point up a fear of losing all that youth offers, while showing an ignorance of all that age brings.

Yes, there are aches and pains as we age, and there is heartbreak. Life deals us many a blow. But it offers an opportunity to just experience. Think back as far as you can, and you will realize that there was a time when you had no cognizance of anything. That cognizance, that conscious awareness, came with aging, with growing into a three-, four- and five-year-old.

And if you think back far enough, you will realize that there was a time -- most of time, seeing as how it has existed, or at least been represented, in some physical form for billions of years -- when you didn't even exist, and therefore couldn't experience. And a time of non-experience will come again, all too soon.

Those who recognize that fact are more likely to be among the aged, more inclined to live their lives with their eyes open, and their hearts, and their minds.

They know that wishing on a star doesn't do much good -- and that there is no magical Land of Beginning Again. They know that each day is a beginning, and that in that beginning they can behold great wonders, and in the process of looking, and seeing, and feeling, can learn.

And in that learning they just might find a way not only to achieve a sort of nirvana on Earth -- where they can forgive, and be forgiven for, youthful indiscretions -- but also perhaps find a way to impart their earned wisdom to an ever reluctant world of youth and beauty and utter shortsightedness.

**********

Previous A. Moralis columns:

The first one is here.
The second one is here.
The third one is here.
The fourth one is here.
The fifth one is here.
The sixth one is here.