Don'tworry about old age...........

it won’t last long!

 

‘It is not the young man who should be considered fortunate but the old man who has lived well, because the young man in his prime wanders much by chance, vacillating in his beliefs, while the old man has docked in the harbour, having safeguarded his true happiness’…. Epicurus.

 

‘Travels with Epicurus’ by Daniel Klein should be a set-book for all over 60.

 

A septuagenarian, he takes a wry, whimsical, amusing and intelligent view of old age from the small Greek Island of Hydra, with reference to philosophers from Epicurus to Sartre. Epicurus taught that the highest good is personal happiness. I have no quarrel with that.

 

First-up is to accept it; after all there is little palatable alternative.

 

When I see sweaty-faced old fools jogging, or cycling in lycra and crash-helmets, I think to myself ‘There goes another admission to the cardiac ward’. The error is to believe that ‘fit’ means the same as ‘healthy’.

 

People seek to avert the onset of old age with exercise routines that will give them the best-toned body in the mortuary, botox that makes them look like waxworks, dental implants at £2000  per tooth, pilates (whatever that might be), liposuction, and all the other expensive cosmetic interventions. Scarcely a day goes by without a snake-oil salesmen advertising on the internet his remedy for ED, Alzheimer’s, or whatever.

 

They miss the point.

 

The key to a successful and fulfilled old age is intellectual, not physical. The little grey cells must be kept exercised. The enemy of old age is boredom. Prime examples of those who got it right are the retired Judge who went to Oxford University at the age of 73 to get another degree and the 93-year old lady who took up painting and got an exhibition at the Royal Academy.

 

High Court Judges have a lifestyle that involves much sitting and port wine, but they seem to live to a ripe old age. It’s the intellectual stimulus.

 

Epicurus believed that it was essential to have the company of friends. His table was famous not for the quality of the food (contrary to popular belief he was quite happy with a plate of lentils) but of the company.

 

He had no ’side’. Professors and prostitutes were welcome at his table; in truth, it became even more popular when word got around that ‘red hat and no knickers’ was commonplace.

 

We have a group of 5 or 6 oldies who spend every Friday afternoon in the local pub. It’s like an Irish Parliament there; everyone talking and nobody listening. There is both a high decimal count and matching profanity, especially on the subject of Stan’s shorts.

 

After retirement, time takes on a different dimension. Managing it is an art in itself. Epicurus said ‘Work is easy but true idleness takes courage and fortitude’. Attitudes change radically. Klein describes the old boys at his tavern admiring a beautiful young girl aesthetically rather than as a sex object, although one of them hopefully keeps a supply if Cialis and wears a testosterone pouch!

 

Klein has no time for the medical profession that seeks to keep oldies alive long past their ‘die-by date’. He observes that no longer could Dylan Thomas beseech his father to ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light’ because the old man would have been pumped full of chemicals. Nor for ‘care homes’. On his island there is a former mansion that has been converted into one such. The Greek government had not appreciated that it would be unthinkable for families there to abandon their aged parents, so there was only one inmate – 92 years old, incontinent, helpless, unable to feed himself, and with a zero quality of life.

 

And the desire for possessions diminishes with age, which in itself reduces stress and worry. I could easily afford a new Jaguar but I am quite happy with my 13-year old Focus.

 

One of Klein’s oldies is sitting with his friends at the taverna, drinking ouzo, and watching the sun go down. He had been approached by a developer who said that the old boy’s land was worth a fortune which would enable him to do what he pleased.

 

‘Like sitting with my friends at the taverna, drinking ouzo and watching the sun go down’ was his response.