A Mind for Life
Notes on Ageing
Deep Life Notes | Ageing
Getting older does not have to mean mental decline. What we believe about ageing can help us build a mind strong enough to carry us through life.
I recently read the story of John Bassinger. In 1992, approaching 60, Bassinger decided to memorise John Milton’s 60,000-word epic poem, Paradise Lost.
I read Paradise Lost when I was 19 (fun times). And when I say read, I mean attempted. Milton’s seventeenth-century work is about as accessible as a block of concrete. Yet, Bassinger, a retired actor, mastered the entire work over eight years, culminating in an acclaimed three-day recital. Even more remarkable is that twenty years on, at nearly 80, he still remembers the verses and words.
Bassinger isn’t someone with a superhuman or freakish memory. By his own admission, he has an average memory and often forgets things. Instead, he trained his memory, just like a muscle. He made the text come alive in his mind using unique and creative techniques such as natural hand gestures inspired by the sign language he’d learned while working for the National Theatre for the Deaf.
Bassinger had another secret weapon: he believed being older allowed all his knowledge and experience to really pay off.
In other words, he thought getting older was a good thing.
Paradise lost then found then scattered
The wise Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius once said, “You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.”
Modern life often gives us the opposite impression. Too frequently it feels like those outside events seem to be in control: ageing, illness, work, family, technology. Our minds feeling like they are being pushed and pulled around by everything else, like a workhorse with a dozen owners.
But if there is such a thing as a mind for life, one that enables the kind of agency Marcus Aurelius believed in, it is not simply a mind that stays sharp, but one that remains active, curious, and dynamic at every age. A mind that helps us live meaningfully and fully, supporting us during the good times and the bad.
A mind perhaps like John Bassinger’s.
The ageing myth
Any serious idea of a mind for life has to begin with the recognition that getting older does not automatically lead to a decline in our mental abilities. Some of the stories we believe about getting older may be doing more damage than we realise.
Dementia is a terrible affliction for those suffering from it, and their families. But it’s not a normal part of ageing and most older people do not experience dementia. There’s also evidence that dementia rates have been declining over time. For many, our minds remain sharp as we age. But if we believe ageing is an inevitable road to ruin, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. What we believe can shape what we become.
Greats like Darwin, Dickens, and Hitchcock produced some of their best work at an age considered past their prime by current standards. The average age of the Nobel Prize winner in the past 100 years has been 65. The author Toni Morrison won her Nobel Prize in Literature at 62. A sense of usefulness and purpose unites them, irrespective of age.
A mind for life is exactly that; a healthy mind throughout our whole life. Although ageing is a biological process, it is also a deeply social and psychological one. Genes only decide about 25 per cent of our health. Genes are important, and we need to recognise they can influence brain health in ways we can’t change, but our surroundings also matter a lot. Our environment shapes the remaining 75 per cent of our health. A great deal of our environment can still be shaped, including the way we think about ageing.
Understanding age beliefs
Dr. Rebecca Levy is one of the world’s most respected experts on ageing and longevity. In her book, Breaking the Age Code, Levy found that people with positive thoughts about ageing can live 7.5 years longer than those with negative views.
Levy explains that our beliefs about age guide our expectations of how we expect people to behave at different ages. When we see someone older, for example, we may expect them to act or think more slowly than ourselves. These beliefs form when we’re very young and continue throughout our lives. The problem is that many of these beliefs are negative stereotypes about ageing. These hurt not only society but also us as individuals. They affect how we see ourselves and can change how we feel and act. If we think getting older will harm our memory, it might just end up doing so because we expect it to, making our own fears come true.
Ageing across cultures
Different cultures perceive and experience ageing differently. While Western countries often celebrate the ideal of youth, Eastern cultures often honour older adults for their experience. How do you see ageing? Think of an older person and write the first five words or phrases that come to mind. Is the sentiment positive or negative? In the United States, the first phrase that comes to mind is typically “memory loss”. In China, it’s “wisdom.” This highlights that how we think about age can be very different across cultures. We might also have something to learn from the respect for older adults in Eastern cultures.
False age beliefs
It’s a common misunderstanding that our thinking abilities (cognition) get worse as we age. Many parts of our thinking, like self-reflection, looking at things from different viewpoints, solving disagreements, and remembering knowledge and facts, get better. Some thinking skills, like remembering routine behaviours such as riding a bicycle, stay the same. Levy’s studies show that if we think positively about ageing, we can get better at remembering things that people often think get worse with age. We have more control over this than we might realise.
The saying “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is another myth. In reality, older people can and do learn new things just like younger people, using the same strategies to improve their memories. Remember our Paradise Lost reciter, John Bassinger? Our brains actually experience new growth in response to mental challenges throughout life. My Dad, about to turn 80, has been learning Spanish and recently sent me a photo of his app tracking an impressive streak of 400 consecutive days of study.
It turns out we are capable of new tricks at any age if we take good care of our brains and nourish them. Studies show that as we get older, we tend to understand our emotions better, think more about our past, dream more about friends, and trust our instincts more. Older brains can still grow. People with a positive view of ageing often want to keep learning or try new activities. That seems worth encouraging.
Getting older doesn’t guarantee wisdom, but any wisdom happens with age.
Changing the story of ageing
Ageing is a part of life. Our genes do affect our health in some ways that we can't control, but a big part of our health is determined by things we can control, like our environment and our thoughts about getting older. This can really affect what we do and how we feel.
Keeping the mind sharp may begin with examining our own views. That can mean noticing stereotypes or negative thoughts about ageing, trying Levy’s “five phrases” activity, and questioning age stereotypes when they are presented as fact. There is growing evidence these beliefs are not accurate. It’s not about denying ageing, but taking more care in the beliefs we associate with it.
Levy’s book is a great resource for learning how to view ageing positively, with many practical and helpful tips. It includes the exercise to list four older people you look up to: two from your life and two from the world at large. Levy asks that you choose a quality you admire in each and would like to develop in yourself as you age.
As Carl Jung said, “Until you make the conscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” That seems especially true of ageing. The beliefs we leave unexamined can decide what we expect from the years ahead.
When someone asked John Bassinger what motivated him to learn a 60,000-word poem by heart, he said it was the Greek ideal of a strong mind inside a strong body. He said the poem was “like a cathedral that I carry around in my mind.”
We may not all carry Milton’s cathedral in our minds, but we can still build something there: stronger, richer, and more alive than we were told to expect.
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