As Melissa Swine was exiting the Mall Cosmetics Store, she was greeted with a celebratory, “Happy Birthday” by her neighbor and close friend, Sara Epicac, who was shopping in the nearby shoe emporium. Melissa smiled in gratitude and responded: ” Oh, I don’t bother with birthdays; not since I reached 48.” The suggestion, implicit in the social response, was that growing older is a negative enterprise, to be disregarded and bravely endured. Analogous responses, ubiquitously articulated in age-similar social interactions, reveal an erroneous and jejune appraisal of the natural phenomenon of aging. The latter, in our perception, while a boon to the cosmetics industry, nevertheless, cogently and appropriately calls for appropriate and thoughtful reappraisal. It might be useful to discuss the subject of age in the ubiquitous context of “Birthdays.”
Birthday celebrations for the young are happy and loving events; family and friends, birthday cake, and presents are the traditional phenomena designed to make the child happy and personally assured of love and ratified personal identity. In our view, such events, in reality, are fundamental expressions of parental gratitude for the child, despite the overt appearance of child-oriented observances.
The perennial observance of Birthday parties, aside from the traditional cake and presents, is, in essence and metaphysical reality, a celebration of the continued existence of the relevant individual and an overt reaffirmation of the secure recognition of place in the family. As the child matures, the succeeding birthday celebrations reaffirm the continued existence of the celebrated individual in the loving familial entity and, notably, his personally evolving maturity. As to the latter, each succeeding birthday assures the maturing individual of his continuing aspirational progress to maturity and independence.
The introductory, fictional conversation between “Melissa” and “Sara” at the outset of this writing is intended to portray what we eternally perceive as a ubiquitous lack of understanding of life and the absence of maturity of perception of empirical reality.
Admittedly, growing old is ineluctably inclusive of the loss of physical prowess and observable changes from youthful to older appearance; nevertheless, growing older is not a toxic disease. The loss of natural prowess is valuably compensated, for contemplative individuals, by a singular increase in mature perspective and understanding of life and the world. Wisdom and experience bring empirical understanding to past dilemmas and insecurities
Age, for those who have led contemplative lives, is understood and revered analogously to the valued maturity of fine wine. With increasing age and experience comes the positive understanding of others and, notably, of oneself. Gray hair and changes in skin texture may be accompanying traits to an inner sense of mature perspective and wisdom, the invaluable concomitant of a “fulfilled life.”
In a few quick months, we will attain the age of 89, for which we are celebratively happy and grateful.
-p.
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