When an elder dies it is like the burning of a library

Pacific Institute’s founder -Dr. Nader Shabahangi- once said that human beings are the only beings who desire to be aware of the nature of their being. That implies that our survival and evolution depend on this awareness. Many of us notice that the longer we live, the more we comprehend the sheer complexity and amazing beauty life offers us. We begin to intuit that what we know in our later years, we could not have felt and known when we were younger.

Absence of Elders

Elders are scarcely available to guide and initiate the young today, however. There is an absence of elders because the old have not been given the skills and ability to become effective elders. In the last few centuries, especially in the industrialized countries, the status of the elderly as respected members of their societies has declined dramatically.

Paralleling this decline has been a diminution of the elders’ role in their respective communities. Whereas elders used to be teachers and guides, the rise of public education and market economies have, among many other factors, made the elderly much less central and important. This has reached a point within the last decades where the senior population in the United States, once at the helm of their communities, has isolated themselves in ‘adult only’ retreat centers located outside many of the major urban communities. An elder succinctly summarizes this as follows: “Do not expect much help from us elders. Most of us have been relegated to retirement enclosures, golf, bingo, tourism, and uncreative play, separating ourselves from the problems of the homeless, the untaught, the unfed.”

This statement poignantly describes the sad state of affairs in which many of our elderly find themselves today. But is also indicates that it is time to re-integrate our elderly and the role of the elder back into our communities and lives.

This seemingly simple intuition brings us to understand that our aging is often directly linked to us humans gaining more awareness about life and living. While surly arguments could be made to the contrary, I would like to take the stance here that the longer we live as individuals and as a species the more aware we become.

AN INTERGENERATIONAL APPROACH

If we principally agree with the argument that old age and maturity brings more awareness, then, the implications are manifold. It would imply that those who have lived longer are vessels of awareness from whom those younger in years can greatly benefit. We would find the young and old huddling together exchanging ideas, thoughts and experiences. If our survival and evolution depend, indeed, on us becoming ever more aware, then this exchange between young and old seems a quintessential requirement for us humans.

This exchange occurs all too seldom, however. Those wiser in knowledge and experience more often than not have ‘retired’. Retirement is mostly understood as reclusion, as a retreat away from the dominant culture to some peaceful setting outside the hustle and bustle of the main centers of human activity.

This means that those younger in years are left to their own devices while the older in years have ‘retired’, have excused themselves from any regular exchange with them. The young are left alone with their hustle and bustle while many of the old tend more to their personal lives.

The reasons for this segregation between young and old are currently enforced by our culture. Sometime in the 19th century, during the prime beginnings of the industrial revolution, the idea of retirement sprung forth, an idea that continues until today.

While it used to made sense for many workers to retire from a life of tiresome, often physically exhausting work, most of tomorrow’s retirees do not partake in the meaningless and tiresome work of their forefathers. As such this new generation of older adults will not be ‘tired’ in the way of their previous generation. Rather, in some ways they will be at the peak of their life considering their emotional maturity and economic status.

What is needed, then, is to change our cultural expectation. Not retirement and seclusion but engagement and exchange with the younger segments of our society are needed. Part of this change in cultural expectations constitutes the re-establishment of the role of the elder within our societies. This role defines what our culture needs from its elders and emphasizes, at the same time, the preparation needed to become an elder instead of just old. As such, human culture ensures its survival through the continued increase in awareness amongst its members.

The exchange between the younger and older members of society is based on the willingness of both parties to engage with each other. The role of the elder must thus contain, ad definitionem, a welcoming and accepting attitude towards the young. This represents an attitude where the older desire to know the younger as much as the younger desire to know the older. Using a visual image, we might call this exchange the ‘circle of knowledge’. Re-establishing eldership completes, once again, this circle. We re-establish the condition in which awareness can grow. In this time of need, of planetary and human difficulties, the importance of deepening our awareness is evident. The rapid deterioration of our environment and the speed with which technology outpaces our ability to predict its effects on our humanity is worrisome to many of us. These conditions are but examples of the fact that the circle of knowledge has been broken, that the role of the elder has been absent.

Dr. Shabahangi speaks of the role of the elder because elders themselves have always been present. But since there was no role for them to occupy, since society did not have an ear for them to be heard, most of them retreated into retirement. There were exceptions, of course. Despite of our culture’s unwillingness to listen, some elders have had the courage to speak out. They have become symbols for a way of being to which many would like to aspire. We read and hear of their names almost daily: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa, naming but a few of the more known examples.

Training of Elders

We need to train elders if we want to help individuals living in our communities and societies with the important tasks of supporting and guiding the younger in age and experience. For being older does not make an elder. As the history of eldership shows clearly, the qualities attributed to being an elder are quite universal. These traits must be acquired through much training, learning and practice. If we recall, for example, how monks in the various spiritual traditions are initiated over many years into becoming a respected member of their communities, then we have a glimpse of what it will take for a person to grow into becoming an elder.

Michael Meade emphasizes this point as follows: “Elders, by tribal imagination, and by more recent definition, are those who have learned from their own lives, those who have extracted a knowledge of themselves and the world from their own lives. We know that a person can age and still be very infantile. This happens if a person doesn’t open and understand the nature of his or her own life and the kind of surprising spirit that inhabits him or her.”

However, where do we learn anymore how to ‘extract knowledge’ from the world and ourselves? What places are left where those of us interested in eldership can learn? Where do we turn to allow our elder within to grow out of us?