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| An artist and writer's view of old age: Swift's strudlbuggs in Gulliver's Travels |
On my last birthday just over a month a month ago I turned seventy so I have had my biblical allotment of three score years and ten, which is the maximum I am supposed to have on this planet. I am extremely sceptical of the idea that there is another life to come after this one and I am not counting on anything except oblivion after my body finally dies.
I reckon to still have ten to twenty years before that happens. All I know for certain is that it will do so inevitably at some stage. I am not planning on cheating death and I cannot ignore it so I have written (and revised) my will to cater for eventualities. One thing the lawyer said I should do was provide an ‘expression of wishes’ so that my effects were distributed in a way that suited me. Marriage was also suggested as a way of minimising my tax liability but that does not seem like enough of a reason to plight my troth so I will probably pass on that.
A Living Will is also supposed to be a good idea. My late father said that it made a difference to what doctors decide to do. They re so worried about being sued that they will do anything to keep you alive, even if you do not want it. By the way, both he and my mother celebrated their ninetieth birthdays so I seem to come from a reasonably long-lived stock and may have another twenty years to go.
I hear on the news as I am writing this that alcohol related deaths are on the increase in Britain at the moment. I can well believe it. You are now allowed to take your drinks into the auditorium when you go to see a play and booze is one of the things that seems relatively cheap in comparison to everything else, the prices of which are constantly rising. For some people there is not much to do with their old age except drink. Whereas I used to put away a fair but, I now restrain myself and confine my consumption to an ice cream at the theatre.
My grandmother suffered from terrible forgetfulness in her later years and, although she recognised all of us, she would often get lost if let out alone in the street. My father too would repeat stories he had just told a few minutes earlier. He had been a great professor and could recite reams of poetry but would forget that he had just said the same thing as he repeated himself. He remained physically fit to the end. My mother, however, was mentally alert although physically frail as she grew older and death was probably a release for her.
Following their examples, I decided that I wanted my body to go before my mind. That I why I am almost relieved when I struggle to walk a long way and am overtaken by younger people whom I would have outpaced in my prime. I hate the idea of being a burden on anyone, especially my own children. Maybe they would be happy to look after me but I do not fancy having my bottom wiped or mess cleared up if I am able to do it myself.
Inevitably, one starts to think about death as you grow older wondering how you would like to go – in your sleep possibly without knowing anything about it, having a few seconds to realise what is happening as you succumb to a heart attack or some other fatal event, not in a lingering and painful way when you cannot do anything yourself but await the inevitable. We have no choice in the matter, but a friend who is ten years older suggested making a living will so that the agony would not be stretched out. Apparently it makes a difference.
On a more cheerful note, I do not have to worry too much about money and can afford to fix my house up and get rid of the rats and squirrels that are infesting it at the moment. I can also go to the theatre if I want to and went to see a play about the pop group The Temptations yesterday. It was a kind of tribute act and history lesson combined telling the story of the group in the same way that a similar play did about The Drifters recently.
There is evidently a market for this kind of nostalgia trip and there was a large audience of elderly and middle aged men who were reliving earlier years, usually with their wives, all of whom looked as though they had a few more inches around the waist than when the group were in their prime. This sort of play might be their only – or a rare – trip to the theatre as they relive earlier more innocent years when the songs stick in the mind more firmly than they do as you grow older. Were the songs better – or are our youthful memories stronger?
I suspect it is the latter but maybe songs from the sixties were stronger than they are today. Modern people have heard of the Beatles, Rolling Stones and other groups from that era and they and their songs have lived longer in our consciousness than more modern contributions will ever do. Will people still listen to them a hundred years from now?
People like me will not be around to find out. Scientists are searching for the secret of eternal life and ways to cheat death. Tempting? Yes, but will they be able to renew the mind as they do the body. This is far more doubtful and any temptation to live forever is tempered by the memory of Jonathan Swift’s Struldbruggs who were created 300 years ago but are still the best argument against immortality as they went towards senility and what Shakespeare called ‘second childishness, mere oblivion’. Spare me from that, please.
