Commentary: Ancient of Age – the Social Dilemma

How old is too old? Too old for what? Society has many strange expectations of how we should act and what we should be doing as we migrate through the scores of years in route to the finish line. When is it too old to wear certain fashions or sport particular hairstyles? When is it too old to date or marry someone? What are the expectations for watching certain movies (think Star Wars or Harry Potter), and how old is too old to attend certain venues? (Think bars and nightclubs). We are not even going to talk about shoe fashions, skinny jeans, or pleated slacks.

What should the disposition of a forty-year-old person be versus one ten years older? If you are fortunate enough to grow older, the expectation is that you are supposed to know how to act when you arrive. However, most just wing it. If you need further education on how to conduct yourself at a certain age, kindly ask. There is no shortage of opinions out there.

The road to the finish is veiled and hazy. Everyone navigates through life in his or her own fashion. Some people have a short adventuresome life, and some have a long one. You have likely heard the adage, “It is not the years in your life but the life in your years.” Some people do more in thirty years than the rest of us do in eighty. Along the way, we encounter a labyrinth of options with few guidelines mapping the road considered acceptable – especially regarding the subjective concepts of being too old for this or that. The guidelines for aging within the parameters of societal norms are mostly subjective.

Essentially, age is a state of mind. You are as old as you feel. If you are in your 40s and feel like a teenager, then good for you – but be cognizant of the laws surrounding such feelings. Recently, I walked into a happening venue in South Tampa only to realize I was a hundred years older than everyone else. I thought, “One of these folks is not like the others.” It was me. Simply put, I felt “too old.”

Luck often dictates how we discover the unwritten standards that we are obliged to follow. We have all heard the gossipers, “She’s too old to be wearing that outfit,” or “he still wears blue jeans with no belt like he is perpetually twenty,” or “he’s driving a sports car – so he’s having a mid-life crisis.” When should a woman stop wearing skimpy swimwear or short skirts? “She’s too old to wear her hair long.” There are no published standards for such things – yet if you unwittingly violate them, you are subject to ridicule.

Dating and marriage really bring out the pundits. “She’s married to a sugar daddy almost twice her age,” or the converse, “he’s a cradle robber.” There are no written guidelines for such things as long as all involved are of legal status. Some people say, who cares? I fall into that camp, but collectively our opinions run rampant – especially these days on social media. I guess we need something to talk about, or life would be boring.

My research into the realm of “old age” uncovered about three written codes for issues on aging. Those are guidelines provided by insurance agencies and the rules governing Social Security and retirement communities. The insurance agents display metrics regarding your plight in life as it pertains to life expectancy. They will gladly point out the norms for retirement age and statistics regarding your remaining time in the game. The only other guidelines I could find were the bounds for Social Security benefits and retirement communities.

If you are not sure when you are supposed to be old – consult the Social Security guidelines. Essentially, you are officially old at age 62, as that is your first opportunity to reap “old people” benefits.

You are definitely proclaimed “old” at age 70 when you automatically get Social Security benefits. Retirement communities also offer a bit of clarity regarding the perceptions of being old. You cannot live there until you are “old” enough. If you opt to live there at the youngest allowable age – then your friends will have a field day with gossip. Consequently, you navigate on.

Although most firms balk at hiring someone in their 70s, people continue to hire senior citizens to run the country. The last two presidents, according to Social Security parameters, were officially old. Apparently, you are never too old to be President. But the few that belong to that club have reached the pinnacle of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and pay no attention to the “You are too old to be president” noise. The recent passing of the British monarch showed that it is possible to preside over a country well into your nineties. However, most of us expect to stop performing before that and consider ninety “old age.” The politically correct police have other terms for it, but we move on.

The simple fact is, human beings have a shelf life, and some models last longer than others do. Eventually, we all get “old” and stop. The 1982 movie “Blade Runner” provides an interesting take on that regarding the lifespan of android models and humans. As alluded to earlier, the question is – when are we too old for something? Take Tom Brady, for example. He is like Peter Pan and cannot grow up.

Tom Brady, aka TB12 or the GOAT, is 45 years old and considered by some the Greatest Of All Time – hence the GOAT thing. He plays in a league where the average age is 26 years old. By the way, that is less than the average age in the NFL five years ago. He competes against players young enough to be his offspring. Meanwhile, he continues to excel in a profession that showcases some of the largest and most physically fit humans on the planet. The pundits have proclaimed TB12 too old to play in the NFL for years. Eventually, they will be right – but not right now. He does not share in those perceptions, and his mental state and physical prowess are apparently undaunted by the spell of aging. Good for Tom. However, rumor has it that even his 42-year-old wife has threatened divorce if he does not grow up and retire. Talk about an abused senior citizen. Poor Peter Pan.

Wine and other alcoholic spirits get better with age. Typically, most humans do not. There is a saying, “the older I get, the better I was,” but that saying is likely associated with embellishment of past adventures. Speaking of such, if you get ‘old enough,’ you can spin tales of past exploits any way you please, as there are no other living participants to dispute your recollection. Unfortunately, if you luckily arrive at old age, memory loss becomes an impediment, as does the challenge of finding an attentive audience. Of course, there are symptoms of getting old, and they usually surface in the form of impaired cognition and a reduction in physical prowess. I often hear the comment, “getting old sucks.” So, in a way, we are somewhat cognizant that we are getting old, but we still trip over the expectations and social norms along the way.

Birthdays are a problem we all have annually. Getting old means more candles on the cake. Your first clue to getting old is when the birthday cake has only two candles. Visualize a candle with a five and one with a zero side by side as the person turns half a hundred. Then ten years later, visualize the combination of two candles that add up to sixty. Pragmatism and logistics rule this concept. There is great difficulty in firing up sixty small candles. Invariably, the first ones lit tend to bleed wax all over the cake before the main event. People that old are not renowned for their respiratory capacity either, so blowing out sixty candles may be setting them up for failure. The bottom line is that the golden years are not all that, but getting there beats the alternative.

Due to human nature, it is almost impossible not to be tangled in societal issues regarding aging. However, in reality, we should not worry with any of this. It is highly unlikely that anyone that knows us will be walking the earth three-quarters of a century from now to comment on our fashion faux pas or any of our choices in life. We can only hope that we “grow old” gracefully and enjoy the ride through life. The alternative will show up soon enough.

In the words of Hunter S. Thompson, “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a Ride!’ ”