As I grow older, I find myself sometimes getting stuck in one set or another of old ideas, like complaining about the young, bitching about the price of everything, and agonizing over what I should have done in my life rather than what I did or still do.
It is critical, especially as I get older, to toss old, stuffy, and dusty ideas and consider some new ones; new ideas are the path to change, growth, and learning. Old fartism and old talk and speaking poorly of my life are the dangers. Unexamined, old ideas lead to the first death, that of the mind.
I also call this Old Fartismism, embracing the old days as always preferable to the new ones. This clinging of the old is dangerous and unhealthy for the elderly because it makes it very difficult to change or grow.
I love Joseph Campbell’s warning to the elders:
“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.”
I’ve done a lot of shedding of the old skin these past few years, and I found that Campbell was correct. Moaning or whining about my life and looking backward made it almost impossible to know myself and understand what old ideas needed to be scrapped and new ones explored and embraced.
I know what I’d like to do, I kept thinking, and one day I heard an answer from deep inside of me: “so do it.”
One of my favorite new ideas was a need to change and the strength to follow through.
“Unexamined, old ideas lead to the first death, that of the mind.” I loved this, Jon. I’ve been pondering this very thing lately. I am reading Adam Grant’s “Think Again,” where he writes about how we need to look not for confirmation of what we already believe, but for the exact opposite of it, in order to examine our old sacred ideas and beliefs. He believes intelligence isn’t just about being able to learn, but is more about being willing to un-learn. I’ve seen many of the elders in my family simply shut down taking in any new information, and in doing that, they’ve cut themselves off from the joys of life, shaking their fists at evil change. Curiosity and openness to new ideas is the cure for old fartism!
I love Joseph Campbell and I have that quote written down and visit it often. It is so true personally and in some groups that I am involved with.