We are becoming very old

In times of permanent apocalypse, when it’s not the sun burning, the threat is executioners who consider themselves guarantors of peace while talking about annihilating nations, the paradox occurs that is happening in First World countries: we live many more years. Japan has already surpassed 100,000 people who are over one hundred years old. In Catalonia, there are already more than 3,000. There is a scientific interest in longevity, an obsession with achieving the elixir of eternal youth, and a need for care homes and caregivers for the elderly that has never been as great as it is now.

The elderly, who are often called grandparents without knowing if they actually are (it is the only segment of the population to which a generic invented kinship term is attributed, because we don't go around calling middle-aged people parents), are treated with a condescension related to their physical state. They are either adored indiscriminately because they are old or infantilized because they are losing some faculties. It is hard to see old age as the end of a traveled path, of a life lived as one wanted or could, of a journey that depends as much on external factors as internal ones. It is hard to see the elderly person as an adult. Having lost hearing capacity has nothing to do with losing comprehensive capacity. And often people speak to the elderly as if they had a mental problem, when the only thing they have is deafness. When I think about how I would like to be treated if I grow old, I am very afraid to think that it will be the way I see old age being treated in general. As a heavy and burdensome thing that must be endured because there is no other remedy. As a social burden that is in the waiting room of death, waiting for its turn. As a nuisance without any vital experience, a jellyfish without the capacity to sting, floating in a sea of old people. This, or the exact opposite. Because there is an exaltation of active aging. But, what if you reach a point where you are tired of the activity? Why are people who never stop doing things valued all the time, and the more contemplative ones despised? Don't we have the right to stop ever? I also think about what I would want my limit to be. What would I let them fix and what not, even if that meant living less. It is not easy. It is not easy without having aged, and it is not easy when we have already done so. But I do believe it is good to think about it with serenity.

Old age is not a peaceful stretch. Humans, if we reach old age, may end up closing a circle that we began when we were born: we have to be fed and we lose control of our sphincters. In fact, there is a very significant piece of data: in Japan, for more than ten years, the sale of adult diapers has exceeded that of baby diapers. And the data is not only significant because it is striking. It is also because when we talk about a long life, we must think about the needs of these increasingly aging societies, with their obvious problems and their ethical dilemmas. We have not solved it. But since the apocalypse is not yet here, we have time to try to do it a little better.