There was a charming TV programme, 'How to Live Beyond 100', all about people still able to live active lives when they were 100+. So good to have positive images rather than the usual downbeat doom and disaster ahead. Taken with other strands that are also running, it time to pause for thought, there are a lot of threads running behind this issue.
First off, for everyone that is still 'active' at 100+, there are manyfold others who are trapped, trapped in bodies or minds that do not permit them any active role. They have subsided into a total dependence on others for the daily chore of living, see also my post Waiting to Die.
Secondly as we 'baby-boomers' decline into old age the demographics rockets sky high. From being a rarity to survive until 100, now there are some 12,000 and shortly this will become 90,000 was we get into our stride. By the time our grandchildren grow to old age 100+ will have become the norm of life expectancy.
Thirdly it is incontrovertible that as we age beyond the 60's to 70's our bodies and minds are no longer able to perform as they once did, see also my post Retire at 70+!. All past excesses and poor gene choices come to haunt and rack a frail body or mind. Maybe science, medicine or better life choices might stave off the day, but mechanical or mental failure is the inevitable and inescapable consequence of ageing. We will each need support in some form or other to get by. Logistically large numbers of frail old people will have to benefit from support.
In the meantime our Government considers it appropriate and fitting that the retirement age for all is deferred to the 70's or even later. As a blunt answer to the economics of funding an ageing population it is unchallengeable but the social consequences are horrendous. The physical and mental deterioration that occurs with advancing age means you simply cannot compete with younger work colleagues. The end result is you have to step down, accept to be sidelined, reduced to taking on menial roles, pushed aside whilst watching others more productively undertake what was once your domain. That is a big ask, to carry on pushing a increasing frail body to do work but being surrounded by evidence of your failure to undertake it. Does this reflect a caring society with a compassion for its elderly? Or a society that is only looking at balance it books, to hell with the personal consequences?
I had hoped the programme would open the window of how these centenarians saw and viewed the changing society around them. Not to be. There is no ducking it, this ageing poses two crucial dilemmas. Why live to 100+ and what do we do when 100+. We live to 100+ because our skills have made it possible and there is no other alternative. Medical interventions ensure all the easily curable diseases are cured. There are no knock out illnesses or diseases left, other than the ones beyond the reach of medicine, that used to mean death by the 70's was the norm. All we are left with are causes of death beyond cure, such as the cancers, or parkinson, alziemers or dementia. Not for everyone, but what is left for the large majority who do not succumb to these killers, what is left to bring their long lives to an end?
In the meantime they face the inevitable, inescapable increasing dependency on other to support and provide the means you can no longer cope to provide for yourself. Surrender yourself into the hands of salaried carers. Now our Government has decided that this should not be a charge on the State, if you have independent financial means. You should pay for your own care first off. Apart from weasely caveats, this begs several questions. Where is a line to be drawn between say a terminal bedridden cancer patient or confused wanderer with no conscious recollection putting themselves and society at larger at risk, both clearly in need of constant medical support. As against an impaired person, mentally sound, but physically unable to carry out day to day tasks of feeding cleaning and dressing. Sound like a Solomon's judgement to me. Inherently unfair.
We as a Society, through our Government, have decided that the family home, invested in, harbouring precious memories, a depository for all the family hopes and expectations must be sold to pay off a russian lottery outcome. You are decreed insufficiently incapacitated and it has been decided you have the means, so you shall pay. How outrageously unfair and inequitable. Never mind that with the Governments connivance house values have gone beyond the reach of youth and their only hope to claim a home of their own is a share in their parents inheritance. It tastes exceedingly bad to me. Society is so much more than economic book balancing. It has to be about respect, compassion and a rough but overal even equity.
The final part I want to raise is why would anyone choose to live upto 100, let alone beyond a 100. If life has a meaning, it is about being able to contribute. Plenty of avenues to agree or disagree on the significance of contribute and to what. The ageing are no longer able to physically or mentally compete. They now require support and assistance just to get from day to day. We as a Society have chosen to turn our backs on the one significant contribution the aged can still offer. They have accumulated experience, wisdoms and a longer perspective having seen many iterations of events and peoples reactions to those events. In a youth centric world, these views from a past are brushed aside, marginalised even laughed at for being quaint and so irrelevant. The arrogance of youth. With their one gift trounced our aged are left nothing to contribute but their memories. Instead of being revered for being pillars of wisdom with a canny understanding of how life works, they are dismissed as a costly drain taking up precious and unaffordable human resources better spent elsewhere.
In life we make, or have made for us, choices which set up a flow of consequences. We have chosen to intervene and use our medical skills to take away natures calling card. There is no longer a natural end game for most. We have chosen to marginalise our elderly so they can longer contribute meaningfully into society. We have chosen to regard them as a cost liability to be born by society rather than a debt of honour. We must now face the consequences of those choices and we have to replace natures calling card with a calling card of our devising so that our tired elderly can say, in their own time, enough is enough, and then let them go peacefully, without financial harassment. In peace and in dignity. Tough call. Get it right because in due time you too will incur the consequences.
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