“Aging is just another word for living.” ~ Cindy Joseph
Words matter. How we talk about ourselves, our bodies, our relationships – everything! – shapes our experience of it.
Feel the difference between “just a cat call” and “street harassment.”
Why “women’s fiction” and not simply “fiction”?
What about the statement, “he had sex with underage women” as opposed to, “he had sex with girls”?
What about the word “aging”?
What do we really mean when we say “aging”? Getting older isn’t something that you suddenly start doing at a particular time in your life. Everybody, EVERYBODY, from the moment we are born until we take our last breath, everybody is aging. But we wouldn’t say that that the 12-year-old Little Leaguer is an “aging athlete” or that the college freshman is an “aging woman” – even though they both are.
Think about it for a minute: when you say “aging” to describe a person what do you mean? Over a certain number of years? Having a certain condition? Looking a particular way?
In their 2020 paper What if there’s no such thing as “aging”? (Mechanisms of Ageing and Development), Alan A. Cohen, Véronique Legault, and Tamàs Fülöp question the use of the word. They write:
Because we use the word “aging” so frequently, both colloquially and scientifically, we rarely pause to consider whether this word maps to an underlying biological phenomenon, or whether it is simply a grab-bag of diverse phenomena linked more by our mental associations than by any underlying biology. ...[A]ging is not a unitary phenomenon.
What we mean by “aging” is largely culturally driven and is connected to broadly-held societal beliefs about getting older.
In her book, Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long and Well You Live, Yale professor Dr. Becca Levy explains that those with positive beliefs about aging live more than seven years longer than those with negative aging beliefs.
Dr. Levy contrasts the negative age bias in the United States with that of many Asian cultures which traditionally hold older people in high esteem. And that negative bias or “ageism” is everywhere. She writes that “according to the World Health Organization, ageism is the most widespread and socially accepted prejudice today.”
And the ramifications of this ubiquitous ageism are significant. She explains,
“This is one of the most harmful things about negative age stereotypes: they don’t only color our actions and judgments toward other people; often, they influence how we think about ourselves, and these thoughts—if they are not counteracted—can impact how we feel and act.”
Noticing these cultural beliefs and making different choices is one way we can change these beliefs. Let’s start with these two ideas:
(1) “Aging” isn’t actually any particular biological phenomenon and
(2) Our beliefs about aging have a powerful impact on the length and quality of our lives.
The word “aging,” then, is at best vague and unclear and at worst, a conveyor of negative ageist beliefs. So what if we played with saying “living” instead? How would that change our thinking and perceptions about the whole process?
Here are a few quotes about aging from some famous folks...and what they sound like with the words changed:
Knowing how to age and not being afraid of aging is very healthy. ~ Evelyn Lauder
Knowing how to live and not being afraid of living is very healthy. ~ Evelyn Lauder-ish
How do I confront aging? With a wonder and a terror. Yeah, I'll say that. Wonder and terror. ~ Keanu Reeves
How do I confront living? With a wonder and a terror. Yeah, I'll say that. Wonder and terror. ~ Keanu Reeves-ish
Aging is not uncomplicated. Creativity is an extraordinary help against destructive demons. ~ Ingmar Bergman
Living is not uncomplicated. Creativity is an extraordinary help against destructive demons. ~ Ingmar Bergman-ish
The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over, and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous. ~ John Moritmer
The living process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over, and runs off laughing. No one should live who isn't ready to appear ridiculous. ~ John Moritmer-ish
Here’s something I hear myself say:
My aging body needs lots of care and attention.
Saying instead, “My living body needs lots of care and attention,” feels more expansive, inclusive and compassionate to me. Sure, I’m aging but that’s not what’s interesting. What’s interesting, what I want to focus on is the living.