Walk On Podcast Episode 66 : Aging Gracefully

“You look so good for your age!!”

“You don’t look a day over 25!!”

“Woooow, you haven’t aged at all!!!”

These are all sentiments we’ve been taught are compliments, but if we dive a little deeper its like… are they? Why is it so bad to look one’s age? Why is eternal youth so utterly desirable and why is visible age seen as the epitome of ugly?

Being fat, or embodying any “undesirable” trait according to the white supremacist capitalist cis heteropatriarchy, you either internalize the bullshit and spend your life hating yourself, or you see the bullshit very clearly and realize… wow, “beauty standards” are all made up.

The second option is the freer one.

That being said, even if you unpack racism or fatphobia or queerphobia, agism still has a way of persisting. I think this is because it is possible to unpack one aspect of the white supremacist capitalist cis heteropatriarchy without unpacking the others, and the “capitalist” head of that hydra of oppression is the most acceptable to uphold, to most people. In fact, the majority of people still think being a capitalist is a good thing!! A virtuous trait! I mean, can you believe?! In this most dystopian year of 2021?!?!

Agism has a connection to ableism, the ism which says your value as a human being is directly correlated to how well you can “CoNtRiBuTe to SoCiEtY” which is gross and annoying and a really shallow way of perceiving multifaceted human beings. Pre-capitalism, elders were community leaders, valued for their wisdom, they were revered, cared for, loved. “Contributing” took on different meanings at different points in one’s life. I could spiral out at this point into how emotional labor and more domestic contributions to households/communities/relationships are excessively undervalued in our current way of life, but my carpal tunnel is acting up and I’m not getting paid per word (or at all lol). Maybe I’ll do a podcast episode about that too.

Lemme just take this moment to say lots of multigenerational households and cultures that aren’t white have a much different relationship to aging and the elderly and still do operate in this pre-capitalistic way. Although capitalism has been forced on humanity pretty globally, AND the beauty standard of eternal youth does penetrate even in places where getting older isn’t seen as a personal failure.

We can’t help getting older. One big motto in self-help spheres is “I can only control myself and I release what is out of my control.” There is so much suffering in resistance to what is. There is so much pain in wishing things were different, and there is so much freedom in the surrender of radical self-acceptance. Aging gracefully is just a state of mind.

Aging is complicated because, as humans with egos, we fear change. Aging is a visual reminder that time marches on and that physical life is finite. Aging is also seen as a limitation in our society, which considers one more or less valuable based on how able-bodied and patriarchally f*ckable they are. What if our fears and resistance toward aging could be transcended? What if we could surrender to the process? What industries would crumble? What power would we have to gain? What wisdom? What connection? Listen here.