EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 AGEISM

America is dealing with a new “ism” lately. That would be ageism. I never thought about it when I was younger for they always told us that old folks had more sense than we did. Now it seems old folks, that would include me, don’t have any sense at all.

I’ve only encountered ageism once in my professional career. That occurred during a political campaign, and I was doing some work for the wrong candidate. I don’t think the other party hated me as much as she did society at large. She hurled the word “elderly” at me like a Roman centurion throwing a spear.  I didn’t pay it much mind for I spent a year of my life hoping to live long enough to be an elderly anything. In the interim, I dealt with experts, even professionals, in the area of mendacity. Amateurs amuse, more than provoke, me.

I have come to believe that ageing is a remorseless fact, but I’m not sure we measure it effectively. I have young friends, even relatives, who quit learning at the point where logic became binary and facts were only useful when they agreed with emotions.

On the other hand, I have friends and acquaintances, some older than I, whose minds are, as they say down in LA, “sharp as tacks.”

I do think old folks tend to be a bit forgetful and hesitant in their responses to stimuli. I’m not sure that this is due to malfunction as much as to overloaded hard drives. They also maintain an imbedded acquaintance with the "law of unintended consequences." That can slow a response as much as anything.

Stories of achievement by those termed elderly—such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Grandma Moses—counsel against ageism. Stories of youthful folly abound. Think of the Cuban invasion and the refusal of 20-something “me” to buy Walmart stock when his wife told him to.

Why don’t we move away from thinking of age and dwell on policy analysis? Yes, it would be harder, but the results might astound us.