Zen-ish Thoughts About Old Age

During the first several hundred thousand years of Homo sapiens' existence (and millions of years for older hominids), when one had serious health or mobility problems, death was the most likely result. Life expectancy was probably in one's 40s at best. In today's world, we may live twice as long as that or more. There are many good things to be said about this, but it also presents some challenges for which evolution has not prepared us.

In addition to biological evolution, humans also have social evolution. Many cultures have adapted to increasing senior populations by creating a revered place in the family for grandparents of any age, and go to lengths to take care of them within the family setting. In the United States and increasingly in other developed nations, both community and family have been significantly eroded during the past several decades, at the same time that the economy and social changes have resulted in family-based care becoming almost impossible, at the same time that longevity (with multiple medical conditions) has been extended. With fewer people having the time at home to be fulltime caregivers or even companions for a family member, we have developed daycare for children, and daycare or assisted living for the elderly, for those who can afford it.

If we are to be exceptionally candid, we are all uncomfortable about old people at least because we don't want to be one. Guess what – old people feel this way too – about themselves! How hard is that! No one has ever said, "I can't wait until I am so old that I cannot take care of myself with complete independence." My mother quips, "Getting old sucks, but it beats the only alternative". (She also knows the relief promised by the alternative sometimes has its own appeal.)

I don't know of any science on this, but I personally suppose that the common feeling of being put off by the very old is because our instincts developed when nobody got that old. Our most senior seniors often look as if they are ill and or injured (even if they are not), and our instincts warn us against close proximity. Illness can be contagious, and injury can attract predators, slow down the rest of the group, and consume more resources than one contributes. Sharing life experiences and wisdom do not compete well against those pressures. (This is present today in the tendency of most companies to not hire people with lots of valuable experience and seasoned judgment, on the assumption that they will be less productive in the short-term ways that dominate corporate metrics, family logistics, time constraints, and emotional exhaustion.)

Without an accurate understanding of transmissible conditions, our distant ancestors had an instinctive fear of diseased persons. One of the ways we know this is from our history of there being an uncountable number of conditions that we now know not to be contagious that in the past were feared and even literally demonized. Our biological instincts have not changed. Old age scares us.

Additionally, human cultures have put a great deal of effort into denying our biological, animal nature. We like to think not only that we don't die, but that it's best we suppress lust for eating and for sex, that anger is always a failing, that we should never give off an unpleasant odor, that cleanliness is next to godliness, and so on. When we encounter an adult who needs help with their basic, animal, bodily needs, this requires most of us to consciously overcome some degree of culturally-inspired disgust, or at least dis-ease.

We must add that we hate our own mortality so much that a major feature – arguably the primary feature of almost every religion – is to deny that we cease to exist when we die. Religions centrally and consistently claim that we don't really die. We are reincarnated, or go to heaven, or anything other than actually ceasing to exist – even hell is apparently more palatable to us than ceasing to exist.

Even while passionately pretending that death is not both complete and final, we still hate the fact that we die. It's almost as if we know that belief in eternal existence is just pretending. Being with people in their old age not only reminds us of our own inevitable death, but that death will likely approach us incrementally, as it has them, over a period of years or even decades of increasing disability, pain, and dependency. When we anticipate it for ourselves, we don't want that any more than the people who are currently living it.

Lastly, there is truth to the idea that many people get crankier as they get older. Think about it and it is unsurprising. Given all of the above, people who are now in their most senior years are at least a bit put off by their own bodies, reducing mental capacities, and external circumstances. They also know how the rest of the world regards them, for something they cannot control, for something they do not want, for something that may feel like not who I am inside, not who I have been, not what I have done in my life, not what I have to offer. No one is eager for increasing dependency, decreasing ability, increasing pain, and decreasing cognitive functioning, or for having to help someone who is increasingly impaired in these ways. No one actively wants this, even if some people are especially good at responding to it in themselves or in others.

Add to the above the fact that there is very little for our most senior seniors to do all day. If you had all of the above going on (when you eventually have all that going on), and nothing much to do all day, focusing on your pain, your reduced personal agency, your health problems, complaining a lot, and being fussy that everything is not how you want it to be becomes a quite likely result. Indeed, it is likely that complaining and being fussy are the only emotional peaks and or emotional releases that punctuate the otherwise dull or worse than dull existence that most older people are expected to survive in a state of gracious complacency and uninterrupted gratitude. Old age is not for sissies. Neither is caring for someone in their old age.

If you are caring for an older person, at home, in assisted living, or in a nursing home, note the above aspects of what is so. Noting all of that, seeing the obvious importance of compassion in such circumstances, if being compassionate for them is currently beyond you, I hope you will be compassionate enough to avoid interacting with people living in those circumstances, both for your sake, and especially for theirs.

If you are interacting with older folks, how can you bring as much compassion to it as is called for? How can you, at the same time, hold them accountable for what still is their controllable behavior and their responsibility? How can you do for them what they need, yet not undermine whatever independence and accomplishment they can still have? How can you still treat them in an adult manner and not infantilize them? How do you show them active respect, and not charity that implicitly devalues them? How do you take care of yourself when you are doing so much for them and still dealing with your own job and other responsibilities?

This is hard, and if you are a primary caregiver, this is very hard. On top of all of the above, a primary caregiver has to deal with all the inadequacies, inconsistencies, unreliabilities, indignities, and outright failings of our healthcare and insurance industries. So many things need to be done, and despite well-intentioned professional help (and some ill-intentioned business practices), an amazing amount of education, alertness, and advocacy falls on the primary caregiver, even when the older person is in an assisted living or nursing home facility.

When you reflect on the immense amount of compassion that is called for in this context, please note that not a little of that must be directed to those caring for the older person. They have a role that is heavy with responsibility, emotional demand, and time commitment, even in the case that the person cared for is in some form of residential treatment, even in the case that the people they care for are not family members, but clients.

In short, for a zillion reasons, briefly and incompletely illustrated here, our seniors and their caregivers need us to show up with an abundance of compassion and respect for each of them. If you are a caregiver, that includes an abundance of self-compassion, and such positive actions as taking breaks, and doing nice things for yourself.

As usual, but especially poignant here, the Zen-ish approach is to notice what is so, and see how that leads to the conclusion that compassion must guide one's response, to self and to others.