Sometimes in my writing these days, I say things that indicate my age. It might be something like, “In the America in which I grew up, in the 1950s and 60s…” Sometimes I will actually give a number: “At the age of 76…”
I wonder what impact that disclosure of my age has on readers – especially younger readers – i. e. on how they regard me and what I have to say.
I imagine that younger readers will think, “Old Man.” As the young man I once was, I surely would have regarded a man in his 70s automatically qualified for the “old man” category.
But what would “Old Man” mean?
“Old Man” can conjure up very different images, emphasizing different aspects of what it means – or can mean – for a human being to live through a long life.
Among the derogatory meanings, are those that emphasize how getting old involves the body deteriorating in one way or another. “Over the hill.” “Can’t cut it.”
We see scenes in the movies depicting a lack of respect for the older generation, as some young man – or pack of young men – treat an older man in belittling ways, calling him “gramps,” though they’re no relation.” Or “Oldtimer.”
The old guy is “behind the times.”
Then there are images that are about the rigidity that can come with age: The old guy is “set in his ways.” And the well-known saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
So it’s risky, I realize, to call readers’ attention to my being an Old Man. But I do it because I’m aspiring to be seen as fitting other, positive images of the Old Man role.
Like the older Sean Connery, in The Untouchables, coaching Kevin Costner’s younger FBI guy.
He represents the older guy who has seen more of the world, who knows the ropes. And who therefore can tell younger people some things it would be good for them to know.
That elder’s larger body of experience connects with the role I seek to play with America’s current political crisis, helping younger people see the challenge of the present in an importantly larger context. I’ve lived history that shows that the current American political dynamic is an anomaly, unprecedented in living memory.
Younger people should know, as the elder does, that in the generation(s) before their birth, the idea that “We are all Americans” so permeated the American ethos that the relationship between the political sides was fundamentally different from the ugly stuff we have now (where one side utterly demonizes the other, and won’t even concede to the other when it loses an election).
It is a potentially useful perspective, as the positive possibilities it suggests should direct our efforts to the things that need repairing, and should fortify the determination of the young not to acquiesce in this nation’s politics being so ugly and dysfunctional.
And it should encourage those younger people to apply themselves to fighting and winning that battle against what’s become broken.
Age can mean not just “knowing the ropes,” but also the deeper knowing of wisdom—the fruit of time having been put to good use in the quest for understanding.
Deep in cultures around the world – archetypal – are the images of the Wise Old Man and of the Wise Old Woman).
(Arthur had his Merlin. Zen students had their Masters. Hassids had their rabbis.)
The Old Man knows of the deeper Forces that are at work in our world. (Like Obi-Wan Kinobe in Star Wars, who teaches the hero to tune in on that important dimension of reality.)
Part of wisdom involves seeing how the Big Picture fits together. Wisdom means Seeing Things Whole.
It is in application for such an Old Man role that I have published a series that presents an integrative vision of the human story. Titled The Fateful Step, it will be published here in installments a couple of weeks apart starting in several weeks. And meanwhile it can be found on my own website.
As this “vision” is the fruit of more than a half-century’s work, it makes sense that such a way of “Seeing Things Whole” would come from an Old Guy.
That’s why I reveal my age, hoping it will make more credible my claim — about which I expect some skepticism — that this way of Seeing Things Whole calls for important changes in how we understand ourselves, our species’ history, and the challenges that humankind now faces.