Age shall not weary us, it’s just a number

My father was a World War II veteran who attended Armistice Day parades every 11 November.

Also known as Poppy Day, or Remembrance Day, this annual event commemorates the end of WW1 fighting at 11am on 11 November 1918.

The City of Joburg commendably continues this tradition to honour those who died in WWI and subsequent conflicts.

Before WWI, 11 November was already St Martin’s Day. My parents chose my first name because I was expected to arrive on that date.

With that background, I was moved to tears one wintry day in Edinburgh when first reading this well-worn Laurence Binyon quote on a monument:

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.

While words remain moving, I now quibble with the notion that age necessarily wearies us and that we are somehow condemned as years roll by.

Last week, TimesLive ran an ill-informed “analysis” saying older politicians fall asleep on the job. And “more than 1 000 councillors above the retirement age of 60 [are] set to serve as … councillors across the country”. As if there
was something wrong with being over 60.

ALSO READ: Remembrance Day: Honouring all who died in wars

A friend cancelled his Times subscription, saying this ageism was the final straw. Sixty is not a universally recognised retirement age in the 21st century. Science does not support the idea that older people should be Wednesday 12 17 November 2021 put out to pasture.

In fact, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2018 found that “at 60, you reach your peak of potential and continue to 80”.

“The most productive age … is 60 to 70 years. The second-most productive age is 70 to 80. The third most productive age is 50 to 60.”

The average age of Nobel Prize winners is 62. The average age of Fortune 500 company chief executives is 63. For pastors and popes, average ages are higher.

The latest US presidential election was contested between septuagenarians. So Psalm 90’s declaration: “The days of our years are three score years and 10 …” (with qualifications), is inaccurate.

Older people have the advantages of knowledge and experience. These things matter when productivity is required.

Obviously we slow down and eventually stop, but the idea that dotage necessarily begins at 60 or 70 is flawed, even if literature is replete with references to inevitable decline.

“Do not go gentle into that good night”, urged Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

There are assumptions also in this line from Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata: “Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.”

We don’t all necessarily gracefully surrender the things of youth in any field of endeavour, including physical or mental exertion. Bugger that.

Much of this is psychological. The more you think like an old person, the quicker you will go that way.

Age is a number, which can be used as an advantage to get things done, or an excuse not to get things done.