The spirit of ageing

If we look at the human being as a living being and we look at him as if this being has nothing to do with ourselves, we would see a rather complicated physical organism that seems to be at the top of the evolution of nature. In youth it is beautiful and learns a lot, later it stabilizes and retains its acquired knowledge. Then it declines, becomes less beautiful, acts more slowly - till death follows.

But being part of this human race, we look at it from the outside, but now are also in it as participants. This is a specific human capacity, to be within it and to be outside it at the same time. And so we have the possibility to watch ourselves carefully while growing ever older. We look at ourselves, not only in the mirror, but also really inwardly. Not only inwardly physically, in terms of feeling how our physical state is, whether tired, fit, ill, sound etc.; but also psychically. The more we are used to keeping an eye on ourselves inwardly, the more this psychically looking at ourselves becomes a common, everyday activity.

If we look only at the physical body, becoming older is a rather painful process. But if our regard is wider, something else becomes clear. I have worked as a doctor for some decades. How many elderly people have been sitting at my desk? One thing is as clear as it can be: not one of the older people I have seen, sees him/herself as psychically old. There is, of course, a part of inner life that is affected by becoming older. But the feeling that we are ourselves, the consciousness of the I, doesn't age. It becomes richer, wiser, has more life experience, can better see things in perspective. But the I-feeling doesn't age.

And so it is really unimaginable that there are older people who still think their I is physical, that the physical body is the producer of the I feeling. If that were true, all ageing people would have ageing I's. But they don't. The I stays as young and vivid as ever, becoming even more vivid - as long as it is not totally stuck to the physical body. And, as I said before, ageing people relate through their I, talk through their I, and show that their I is a self-employed, independent being, that is affected by the ageing body, but that it is not the result of this body. So all the materialistic old people that believe that after dying 'there will be nothing', have forgotten to look at themselves in the inner psychic life. Were they to remember themselves, they would be astonished by the illogical conclusions they draw!
And if we look at ageing people and are able to withdraw our attention from the merely physical and focus on the more 'I'-like being, we would see the spirit, because it becomes much more discernable in ageing people.

In philosophy, beings gifted with a soul are named 'animals', because in Latin ‘soul’ is anima. But look at ageing animals and compare them with ageing human beings. Then you yourself will see that although a human being is also gifted with an 'anima', hence is 'animated', it has something that goes beyond this. The physical body becomes old and more restful, on the other hand the mind, the 'anima humana', becomes more free, more spirited - if only the ageing human being doesn't forget to look at his inner life and see that it is not ageing at all.

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From: Vincent van Gogh: a life in letters. 1853-1890. By Vincent van Gogh
I now have two more drawings — one is a man reading the Bible and the other is a man saying his prayers before his midday meal, which is on the table. Both are most decidedly in what one might call an old-fashioned sentiment, they are ditto figures as the old man with his head in his hands.

...

My intention with these two and with the first old man is one and the same, namely to express the special mood of Christmas and New Year. At that time, in both Holland and in England, there’s still always a religious element, everywhere in fact, at least in Brittany and Alsace too. Leaving aside whether or not one agrees with the form, it’s something one respects if it’s sincere, and for my part I can fully share in it and even feel a need for it, at least in the sense that, just as much as an old man of that kind, I have a feeling of belief in something on high even if I don’t know exactly who or what will be there. I like what Victor Hugo said: religions pass, but God remains.  And Gavarni also said a fine thing: the point is to grasp what does not pass in what passes. One of the things that will not pass is the something on high and belief in God, even if the forms change, a change as necessary as the renewal of greenery in the spring. But you will understand from one thing and another that my aim in these drawings is not to pay homage to the form but to show that I greatly respect the Christmas and New Year sentiment.

And if there’s any sentiment or expression in it, that’s because I myself share it. 


The spirit of ageing by Mieke Mosmuller