LETTER | I turned 53 recently. I guess I qualify as being an old lady.

As I stare at my image in the mirror, I recognise the not-so-subtle signs of ageing, my wrinkled skin, my sagging neck, and age spots sprouting merrily.

I am bombarded by advertisements luring me to fight against these signs of decay. There are miracle treatments to eliminate my stubborn signs of ageing.

A friend even openly exclaimed that I looked “horrible”. He is 65 and he told me that he despises being addressed as an “uncle”. I was also offered free Botox treatment by a nice young cosmetic surgeon which I politely declined.

Can we choose not to be old? Why are ageing and old age such a scary phenomenon to be fought against at all odds?

It seems like once we are considered “old” in important settings, no amount of individual behaviour or good attitude makes it reversible for any of us. The continuing subtraction from selfhood hurts everyone.

Second-class citizens

As the wars against ageing escalate, they are noxious to younger people too. How then can growing old look good to the young when they see so many ahead of them becoming second-class citizens?

Fearful of that fall, some friends are getting cosmetic face-work when barely over 30.

I do not remember my grandmother wishing to get rid of her wrinkles or pining for her youthful looks. So, what happened to us? How did we get to where we are? How is it that today we are labelled as a potential, competitor or irrelevant?

I recall being a part of an extended family, where everybody has natural roles within the structure where old people are part of the families, and the old and the young exist together in an equilibrium.

Today we have this culture where we have “an ageing problem”. We women now live a full third of our lives after menopause, and yet our culture reminds us that unless we are young, shapely, and still capable of bearing children we are invisible.

I have women friends who’ve gone to great lengths to keep up a youthful front with the aid of cosmetic surgery. Perhaps the results may be superficially satisfying, but I have this suspicion that the impulse to re-carve what nature has created often masks a profound despair.

Bizarre assumption

It seems like we are urged to fight, over and over again, a losing battle against time, pitting ourselves against natural law.

How absurd this is, and how inhumane, toward both ourselves and the natural cycle of life. Our culture tells us that the natural order of ageing is a kind of failure that somehow God made a mistake.

Our culture tells us that people should be young forever and since God has made this hideous mistake, only the wonders of science and commerce can save us.

I wonder why we cannot see how bizarre this assumption is, and how much pain it creates.

When old age is viewed purely as a burden, it creates a great disparity. It is not only a great disservice to the old but also one that inevitably returns to haunt the young.

Social burden?

One of my favourite Chinese stories succinctly points this out. It tells of an old woman who’s too weak to work in the field or help with household chores. She just sits on the porch, gazing out across the fields, while her son toils the soil and farm.

One day, the son looks up at the old woman and thinks, “What good is she now that she’s so old? All she does is eat up the food! I have my family to think about. It’s time for her to be done with life!”

He then makes a big wooden box, places it on a wheelbarrow, rolls it up to the porch, and asks his mother to get in. The mother lies down in the box and the son puts the cover on, then wheels it toward the cliff.

At the edge of the cliff, there was a knock from the box. “Yes, mother?” the son asks. The mother replies, “Why don’t you just throw me off the cliff and save the box? Your children are going to need it one day.”

If we do not see ourselves as part of life’s continuity, regardless of whether we’re young or old, we will continue to view ageing as something apart from the mainstream of culture, and the old as somehow other.

I read messages from internet hate sites wishing that “these miserable old once-were-people not survive as long as possible to burden the rest of us.”

What picture does it paint of us as a society? I write here as a woman of a certain age (an old lady) a potential “social burden” as well as an ageist advocate.

“What another person looks like to you is your responsibility.”

- Michael Lessac

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.