Beautiful Age, Broken Bodies, Golden Scars
The images of the elderly in Western societies are almost universally unflattering. Bent, broken, slow and clumsy — shuffling and dementing towards the black silence.
Quick! Look away! No! Not us!
No, we want the vibrant, quick and beautiful energy of Youth.
The happy, bubbly party that never ends.
Age is ugly.
One of the most beautiful ideas I’ve learnt in recent times is
the Japanese notion of “Kintsugi” — that objects are not made beautiful
but become so through use and experience. And perhaps more precious
when they are broken and repaired through loving attention.
Our media worships youth and the endless party.
We live in a disposable society where eventually everything
gets flushed or burnt when it no longer has use.
People too — the elderly serve no use so best warehouse them in homes and prepare for their burning.
Quick! Look away! No! Not us!
At least they’re being cared for so we can care less.
So refreshing then to have an idea with a different set of values and a beautiful stillness to it as well.
I’m in my fifties now.
I have aches and niggles and new pains each year.
I have to work harder to stay mobile.
My mental health has taken years of beating and when I’m down it’s a hot wet mess.
What will I be like in a few decades?
Kintugi has let me see my beautiful scars.
It lets me think about how I earned them.
How I gave up going to the gym to work harder and longer, to spend time taking the kids to their activities. Giving up many things so that those I love might have more.
What you think is beautiful reveals what you value.
Our wounds are not our weakness — our scars are golden paintings of our age and experience. The elderly then are not to be thought of as ugly trash but as beautiful paintings, a life etched out on the canvas of a body.
Don’t look away.
Look deeper.
