Accumulation of Wisdom

We do ourselves and others a disservice when we make old age somethig to be feared.  Life is not a resource to be used up, so that the older we get, the less life we have left.  Life is the accumulation of wisdom, love and experience, of people encountered, an obstacls overcome.  The longer we live, the more life we possess. -Rabbi Harold Kushner

Old age is definitely not an appreciated quality in this country.  In Japan, Africa, and many other countries, the elderly are revered for their experiences and the knowledge and wisdom they have of life. We despise the fact that the old  and infirm remind us of our mortality, so we hide them away.  We are terrified to look at the ending of our young existence, and so we put the aged out of our minds, and go on dealing with life as if this will never happen to us. 60 year old women inject deadly poisons into their face to paralyze their wrinkles, 50 year old women have their necks sliced so that they can flatten out their skin, 40 year old women want breast augmentation, and 30 year olds need surgery to deal with their supposed imperfections.  And yet , not a single one of these procedures increases our knowledge, our wisdom, or our compassion.  Gone is the Grandma with the white hair, and the character has gone down the drain with the hair dye. Gone is the Grandma with the calloused garden hands,  and the wisdom of the earth went into the manicurist's nail polish bottle.  Gone is the Grandma with the counsel of one married 50,60, or even 70 years, and now arriving is the grandma ,divorcing and going to find herself.  What really matters is this,  the young are to blame for the current state of the elderly.  We wanted a more superficially beautiful world, so that we did not have to look at the ugliness of old age.  Well, we should have been careful what we wished for, for now they have taken us at our word, and grandmothers are no longer our guides, our mentors, our shoulders to cry on.  Now they have become us, and we have found ourselves adrift in a new, strange, and dangerous sea.

Here's to valuing the elderly-Ruby Jeanette