Youthful elderly

PINOY KASI


Youthful elderly
By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 01:10am (Mla time) 12/27/2006

Published on page A13 of the December 27, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

WITH the recent retirement of one of our professors, I have become the oldest faculty member in our anthropology department at UP Diliman.

Hmmm. . .that announcement wasn't as difficult as I thought it'd be. No one believes me anyway at UP. Indulge me with a bit of boasting, but the other day someone came up to me in a bookstore and asked if I was the Inquirer columnist and after I said yes, he said it was good to see a match between the photograph (look to your right) and the real person. I smiled ear to ear, thanked him and told him proudly the photograph was lifted from my UP faculty ID card, which was taken at least a decade ago, maybe even earlier.

Any secrets to share? Many, but I'm not spilling all the beans yet today. Genes help, from both my father and mother. My father lives up to his name, Julio, which means "youthful," looking about the age I am now, while my mother frets about not having enough white hair to look like the grandmother she is.

I can tell you, too, avoiding anything that claims to restore or maintain youth--from spas to health foods--gives you better odds at staying young, given all the nonsense that's being peddled these days. And avoiding stress? That's rubbish too: my department is one of the most stressful in the university but the stressful professors all look much, much (I say that with great relish) older than I do, so maybe the advice should be: stressing others can age you.

'More of'
Seriously, staying young isn't so much a function of anti-oxidants and avoidance of stress than meeting life head-on, armed with advice from those who've successfully made it into their 70s healthy and well-adjusted to life.

December's many reunions are always a good time to meet with them. The other night, I agreed to join my parents at a restaurant where they hosted a dinner for friends from way back, and I mean way way back to the 1950s.

I had tried to excuse myself, pleading that I was too young, when my parents first asked me to join them, but agreed in the end because all of their friends had, Asian-style, become "Uncle" and "Auntie," and some of them I had not seen for years. Yet when we finally settled in at the restaurant, I had this strong sense of deja vu: except for the white hair and walking canes, the dinner could have been taking place in 1970. Yet, this was 2006 and no one in the group was below 80.

As I watched my parents and the uncles and aunties interacting, I thought of something an elderly Catholic sister had told me some years back, drawing from her life in the convent: "People don't really change. What you'll see is the 'more of' syndrome: people become more of what they were in their youth." How true, I thought. Whatever they were years ago--quiet or loquacious, jolly or serious--they were even more so now.

I checked with my psychologist friend, Dr. Theresa Batangan, if there were studies about personality and aging and she said yes, certainly. Psychologists say we're born with basic personality traits that we bring with us into old age, but these traits are subject to molding by society.

"Niceness" is a cluster of personality traits that have been shaped by society. Take aggression as an example. You see the differences even among infants, but that aggressive little tyke can learn, from parents and teachers, to temper that characteristic, to tap that trait in a positive way. That's the stuff that makes your human rights advocates, for example.

On the other hand, if someone's aggressiveness is not reined in and that person is able to ride into power, we see that trait channeled inwards into arrogance. Unfortunately, that arrogance can get that person places, if he's able to wheel and deal in the world of business, sometimes even in the academe. If the arrogance goes unchallenged or is even praised as a virtue, we eventually see insolence and impunity.

We reap what we sow. The ones who tame their aggressiveness will age into wonderful grandparents, spouses, colleagues, because they're always looking for ways to channel all their energy, and time, taking the initiative for productive pursuits. There won't be a lack of opportunities either, as people beg and pull them back to work.

And the "untamed" ones? It depends. If they retain the power they had in earlier years, they'll continue to live in a fantasy world believing that arrogance is good. But once they lose their power, usually usurped by a new generation of more aggressive colleagues, their social support systems crumble. Surprisingly, this does not mean they become nicer; instead, the more of syndrome still kicks in. Biologically, the neurological circuits are breaking down so whatever modicum of graciousness the untamed ones still had in mid-life will now disappear, the mean becoming meaner in old age.

'Less of'
Which takes me to the "less of" aspect of aging. We know old age is associated with neural circuits breaking down, motor coordination slowing down, the senses losing focus.

Yet I can't help thinking that "less of" isn't necessarily a loss. Nature lets go of short-term memory first while mercifully allowing even Alzheimer patients to keep some of their long-term memory, which can be amazingly vivid, and sustaining.

I love it when the elderly play deaf (in Filipino, nagbibingi-bingihan), pretending they can't hear because they don't want to hear. Despite claims to hearing loss, or vision impaired by cataracts, watch them report back to you everything your teenage children were doing, and were saying, to and with whom, while you were away.

The youthful elderly tend to come from environments where they are constantly challenged to be active, physically and mentally. Those who "mellow" are actually people whose better traits are allowed to surface in a new environment--the former big boss, that CEO now finds that uncompromising firmness doesn't work as well as a grandparent. If it's in them to be patient and kind, an infant grandchild will bring out those virtues.

The youthful elderly thrive on being sought out for advice. But do be aware of that play between the "more of " and the "less of." When I ask older people for advice and they give me a mouthful, I realize it's because they see so many options they want you to choose from. In contrast, when they just look at you and smile, you know it's their way of saying: "Spare me, I'm old now. Don't get me to endorse what you want to do. I've taught you what's right and wrong so do what you should be doing, even if it's more difficult."

When you ask someone elderly how they keep young, don't be surprised if they just smile, the silence as golden as their years.