We’re never too old to learn .. 08 Dec 2007
Rose said: "It's rough to get old. lol!" - She picked up something heavy that she'd bought at the supermarket and quite seriously hurt her back, and the young shop assistant had previously offered to get someone to assist her.
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I know how you feel, Rose.
When I catch the bus I'm prepared for people to climb on board in the order they arrive at the bus stop although I'm used to men, complete strangers, at the bus stop, saying (or intimating) "After you".
And condescension doesn't play a big role in nature in the wild. Neither may this be the natural order among humans but - moulded by civilisation - our mannerisms symbollically express our cultural preferences and even into the 21st century we've elected to role-play men acting in a way that is solicitous of women which satisfies some ethic or ethics we live by.
It's now got to the point though where women have started to say to me "After you". So same behaviour, different relationship - not male/female but younger/older. The relationship revealing as stronger/weaker, in fact, by the assumed stronger party (whether having a gender or age bias) going on "looks" to determine what the situation requires. In there, then, is someone making a judgment value.
The first time a woman said to me "After you", I declined .. no, no, no, no, that's okay, you go .. but then she became more effusive and I thought, okay, she's doing the nice thing and I'm beginning to make her feel bad. So I clambered on board feeling a bit wierd - like I felt a bit wierd when, for the first time as a young adult, a schoolgirl got up from her seat on the bus and offered it to me. Automatically, I declined the offer (no no, that's okay ...).
As a fifty something, compared to when I was twenty something, I thought I had a better understanding of the world at large, and me in it, but obviously I didn't.
In our social interactions there is a kind of "pageant" that we each have a part in, the popular voice of what we want in our society streamed through the rites and rituals we act out between us. Keeping in mind that these rites and rituals would be screened out of society were they not practised to be kept in circulation.
A first hurdle when moving from one age group to another might be the disconnection from a self-image that we've outlived. This gets harder the older we get because it involves an acceptance of a growing vulnerability - that can be felt but can also be denied. Without which acceptance, however, and in the event of help being proferred, we would not be seated in the reality of the moment and might well over-reach ourselves.
You won't be the first or the last, Rose, you can be sure of that.
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