A professor in the welfare department of a university, in the Catholic Peace Weekly's Diagnosis of the Times column, gives the readers some thoughts on 'Life in Beautiful Old Age'.
As we age, we become increasingly familiar with more and more things. This is because our brain's memory creates a ‘cognitive schema’, a kind of interpretation framework based on the common characteristics of repetitive experiences.
Of course, cognitive schemas can be modified at any time. However, most people do not readily change cognitive schemas once they are created. This is because modifying and forming new cognitive schemas requires time and effort. Cognitive schemas help us quickly understand situations and respond to them, but they also have a negative aspect, making us stubbornly act and become obsessed with stereotypes.
As familiar and repetitive things increase, new and novel things in life decrease. Familiarity provides comfort, but it also takes away the joy of life. Today is like yesterday, tomorrow is like today, and ordinary daily life speeds up.
However, as the late Pope Francis said, “old age thirsting for wisdom, peaceful, devout, fruitful, and joyful old age" requires boldly cutting off this familiarity, which is a natural result of aging. Familiarity can bring us comfort and stability, but it can also hinder growth and wisdom.
In his book “The New Organon,” Francis Bacon presented three types of humans by comparing them to insects. First, ‘ant-type’ people who look at the ground, 'people' who are diligent and stick together well. Second, ‘spider-type’ people are ‘selfish people’ who do not work but build spider webs and wait for their prey to get caught and suck their blood. Lastly, ‘bee-type’ people are creative and make honey by transferring pollen. They are ‘altruistic people’ who share the honey they make with others and are essential to society. They seek out new flowers and collect honey; that is, people who reject familiarity and constantly grow and create.
Breaking away from familiarity means living a life of learning without rest. It is a life of using experience as material, but rather than simply repeating the same thing, creating and growing anew with the insights gained from the experience. And isn’t a life of sharing the results obtained through that challenge and growth with others, and giving back to society, a creative, altruistic, and beautiful old age like the life of a bee?
Do you want to live your old age as a time of decline and endless waiting, immersed in familiarity? Or do you want to live a life of creation and wisdom, where you break away from familiarity and use the wisdom you have gained as ingredients to create sweet honey, and share that honey with the next generation and society?
If in your youth you had to inevitably become accustomed to familiarity for social success, your family’s livelihood, and your children’s education, shouldn’t you break away from familiarity in your old age, free from all of that, and return to a beautiful and wise form that most resembles yourself, the original self that God created? Isn’t this the beautiful old age that God wants for us?
