All I’m going to say
is the result of my research with 1,700 men and women,
of more than 60, more than 70, more than 80 years.
I am currently researching those who are over 90 years old.
My biggest inspiration to talk about the invention of a beautiful old age
was Simone de Beauvoir’s book “The Old Age”.
Simone de Beauvoir said that old is always the other,
because older people do not see themselves as old.
But she warned: “Old is not the other.”
Each of us should recognize ourselves in the old man who is today
or in the old that will be tomorrow.
Old is not the other; Old is me.
Simone de Beauvoir,
after describing the dramatic picture of the aging process,
pointed out a possible path to the invention of a beautiful old age:
have a life project.
The work of the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl is a fundamental reference
to understand the importance of the project of life in the invention of a beautiful old age.
Frankl was a prisoner from 1942 to 1945
in four concentration camps.
Your father, your mother, your brother and your pregnant wife.
were murdered by the Nazis.
And he wondered, “Why did I survive?”
And the answer he found was, “Because I had a life project.”
His project was to write about this dramatic experience
in the concentration camp
and create a therapy, based on the Holocaust,
that would help all people find the meaning of their lives,
in love, at work or even in suffering.
Frankl wrote, to the astonishment of many,
that there was humor in concentration camps.
He believed that humor was a powerful weapon
in the struggle for survival.
So he combined with a friend from the concentration camp
make up a joke a day,
to distance yourself from the inevitable suffering.
Frankl died in 1997, at age 92,
and proved that having life projects and giving lots of laughs
are powerful weapons for the invention of a beautiful old age.
After attending the same Paul McCartney show five times,
I asked a friend of mine, 77 years old.
why he, at age 75, does a three-hour show,
singing and playing and dancing without stopping,
if the public would be happy with a one-hour show.
My friend replied smiling,
“Because he’s very horny about what he does.”
Can you call Paul McCartney an old man?
You can call Chico, Caetano, Gil,
Bethânia, Marieta Severo, Rita Lee,
Fernanda Montenegro, Ney Matogrosso of old?
They are examples of an “ageless” generation,
without age, unclassifiable,
a generation that revolutionized behavior in the 1960s.
They keep singing, loving, dancing,
working, creating, transgressing taboos.
They did not retire from themselves, they did not become invisible.
But it does not have to be a celebrity to invent a beautiful old age.
What have I learned from my respondents in their 90s?
Women spoke much more about their fears, desires and sufferings
related to old age.
Brazilian women, especially the younger women,
have panic to grow old.
Men spoke very little of the fear of old age.
In beautiful old age, they want to remain useful, active and productive,
but they do not want to work just out of obligation or to make money;
they want to get horny at what they do.
The motto for a beautiful old age might be, “I do not need more, but I want to.”
Men also want to have more time to enjoy the house,
the family, the wife, the children and the grandchildren.
They want to have time for this world of affection.
which they could not take advantage of when they were younger
and they were worried about making money to support the family.
Women have spoken of freedom.
When I asked younger women what they envy most in men,
they said in the very first place:
“Freedom”.
Second, they said, “Pee standing.”
(Laughs)
When I asked the men what they envy most in women,
they simply replied, “Nothing.”
(Laughs)
But the older women I researched said categorically:
“This is the best moment of my life!
I’ve never been so happy. It’s the first time I can be myself.
I’ve never been so free. “
And how did they gain the much-desired freedom?
First, they made a real existential cleansing.
Cleaning is not just throwing away clothes that no longer serves,
the cacarecos, the useless things; This is the easiest.
Existential cleansing is getting out of our lives.
all those people who hurt us,
only criticize, suck our energy,
the true emotional vampires.
Second, they talked a lot about the importance of friends in their beautiful old age.
It is the friends who care, who talk,
who listen, who lead to the doctor,
who call every day to find out how they are.
The women spoke much more to their friends.
than the husbands, the children and even the grandchildren.
Friends are the family of choice.
Third, they spoke of the importance of saying no.
Younger women have a hard time saying no,
because they want to please everyone, they want to take care of everyone,
complain that they do not have time for them.
Older, they learn to say no:
“Now I’m going to please myself first, I’ll take care of myself,
the time is for me “.
This shift in focus is a real revolution.
They also said …
my researches, okay, it’s not me talking …
that they learned to turn on the “fuck-up” button.
(Laughs)
It’s not that they keep saying “fuck” to everyone,
fuck what others think; is not it.
It’s an “inside fuck”:
“Are you going to think I’m a ridiculous old lady because I’m going to the beach in a bikini?”
(Laughs)
“Are you going to think I’m a no-brainer because I like to kiss my mouth?”
(Laughs)
“Are you going to think I’m an old baranga because I still wear a miniskirt?”
This inner “fuck” is liberating.
Try it.
(Laughs)
Finally, they said they learned to laugh and play a lot more.
Sixty percent of the younger women I researched
said they envy men’s ability to laugh at any nonsense.
They want to laugh, be lighter, play more.
I asked, “Then why do not you laugh?”
“Because I do not have time.”
“Because I’m afraid of the opinion of others.”
Older, they learn to play and laugh a lot more,
especially of themselves.
Bauman said there are two fundamental values to a happy life.
One is security.
The other is freedom.
For Bauman, a happy life would not be possible.
in the absence of either.
Freedom without security is chaos.
Security without freedom is slavery.
The beautiful old age depends so much on the sense of security
as well as the conquest of freedom,
as one 75-year-old researched told me.
She saying:
“I do not like it when they say that old age is the best age or the worst age.
It is not better or worse; is simply different.
With health, money and good friends,
You can be happy in every phase of life.
Why not now?
Today I can be myself for the first time in my life.
I’m free to be the child that I’ve always been and still is.
I can laugh, play and dream much more. “
So I want to tell you a dream I’ve had recently.
In the dream, I would tell all my UFRJ students:
“The only social category that everyone is
it’s old.
We are classified as male or female,
black or white,
homo or heterosexual,
but everyone is old,
today or tomorrow.
The young man of today is the old man of tomorrow.
Hence, as in the libertarian movements of the last century,
of the type ‘Black Is Beautiful’,
we should wear a T-shirt with the words:
‘I am old too, and old is beautiful.’ “
In the dream, we went on a march to Copacabana, all together,
the old men of today and the old men of tomorrow,
wearing T-shirts and carrying posters saying:
“I’m old too, and old is beautiful!”
At the rally, inspired by Martin Luther King,
I gave a passionate speech:
“I have a dream.
I have a dream that, one day, the old will be considered beautiful,
and that we will live in a nation where people will not be judged
by the wrinkles of your skin,
but for the beauty of his character.
We are free, anyway. “
I woke up at dawn repeating happily the phrase:
“We are free, anyway!”,
and wanting to go to Copacabana to express myself shouting:
“I’m old too, and old is beautiful!”
(Laughs)
This is how I want to end,
saying to all of you, the old men of today and the old men of tomorrow,
that I am old too, and old is beautiful.
We are free, anyway.
(Applause)
”
Be First to Comment