What is important
for the aged is not what they are still able to do, nor yet what they
have accumulated and cannot take with them. It is what they are.
This is the cause of
the dreadful feeling of uselessness that so deeply bothers most
elderly people. All those concepts of our modern Western
civilization, in which effective action is held above all, contribute
to their plight.
If progress in
medicine tends to make our society more and more made up of older
people, then a radical and authentic reevaluation of old age is
absolutely essential. Yet is it not the older person himself who must
discover this secret, instead of considering himself a worn-out
adult?…
It is not enough to
invent some new life goal by hit-or-miss, some consolation prize for
old age. It is the true meaning of life that needs to be discovered.
The search for this will be the law of old age...
-Paul Tournier, The Seasons of Life
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