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Simone de Beauvoir

Die early or grow old: there is no other alternative. And yet, as Goethe said, “Age takes hold of us by surprise.” For himself each man is the sole, unique subject, and we are often astonished when the common fate becomes our own—when we are struck by sickness, a shattered relationship, or bereavement. I remember my own stupefaction when I was seriously ill for the first time in my life and I said to myself, “This woman they are carrying on a stretcher is me.” Nevertheless, we accept fortuitous accidents readily enough, making them part of our history, because they affect us as unique beings: but old age is the general fate, and when it seizes upon our own personal life we are dumbfounded. “Why, what has happened?” writes Aragon. “It is life that has happened, and I am old.” … When we are grown up we hardly think about our age anymore: we feel that the notion does not apply to us; for it is one which assumes that we look back towards the past and draw a line under the total, whereas in fact we are reaching out towards the future, gliding on imperceptibly from day to day, from year to year. Old age is particularly difficult to assume because we have always regarded it as something alien, a foreign species: “Can I have become a different being while I still remain myself?” …

Thus, the very quality of the future changes between middle age and the end of one’s life. At sixty-five one is not merely twenty years older than one was at forty-five. One has exchanged an indefinite future—and one had a tendency to look upon it as infinite—for a finite future. In earlier days, we could see no boundary mark upon the horizon: now we do see one. “When I used to dream in former times,” says Chateaubriand, harking back to his remote past, “my youth lay before me; I could advance towards the unknown that I was looking for. Now I can no longer take a single step without coming up against the boundary-stone.” …

A limited future and a frozen past: such is the situation that the elderly have to face up to. In many instances, it paralyzes them. All their plans have either been carried out or abandoned, and their life has closed in about itself; nothing requires their presence; they no longer have anything whatsoever to do….

Clearly, there is one preconceived notion that must be totally set aside—the idea that old age brings serenity. From classical times, the adult world has done its best to see mankind’s condition in a hopeful light; it has attributed to ages that are not its own, virtues that they do not possess: innocence to childhood, serenity to old age. It has deliberately chosen to look upon the end of life as a time when all the conflicts that tear it apart are resolved. What is more, this is a convenient illusion: it allows one to suppose, in spite of all the ills and misfortunes that are known to overwhelm them, that the old are happy and that they can be left to their fate….

Why should an old person be better than the adult or child he was? It is quite hard enough to remain a human being when everything—health, memory, possessions, standing, and authority—has been taken from you. The old person’s struggle to do so has pitiable or ludicrous sides to it, and his fads, his meanness, and his deceitful ways may irritate one or make one smile; but in reality it is a very moving struggle. It is the refusal to sink below the human level, a refusal to become the insect, the inert object to which the adult world wishes to reduce the aged. There is something heroic in desiring to preserve a minimum of dignity in the midst of such total deprivation….

On the intellectual plane, old age may also bring liberation: it sets one free from false notions. The clarity of mind that comes with it is accompanied by an often bitter disillusionment. In childhood and youth, life is experienced as a continual rise; and in favourable cases—either because of professional advancement or because bringing up one’s children is a source of happiness, or because one’s standard of living rises, or because of a greater wealth of knowledge—the notion of upward progress may persist in middle age. Then all at once a man discovers that he is no longer going anywhere, that his path leads him only to the grave. He has climbed to a peak, and from a peak there can be a fall. “Life is a long preparation for something that never happens,” said Yeats. There comes a moment when one knows that one is no longer getting ready for anything and one understands that the idea of advancing towards a goal was a delusion. Our personal history had assumed that it possessed an end, and now it finds, beyond any sort of doubt, that this finality has been taken from it. At the same time, its character of a “useless passion” becomes evident. A discovery of this kind, says Schopenhauer, strips us of our will to live. “Nothing left of those illusions that gave life its charm and that spurred on our activity. It is only at the age of sixty that one thoroughly understands the first verse of Ecclesiastes.” …

If all were vanity or deceit, there would indeed be nothing left but to wait for death. But admitting that life does not contain its own end does not mean that it is incapable of devoting itself to ends of some kind. There are pursuits that are useful to mankind, and between men there are relationships in which they reach one another in full truthfulness. Once illusions have been swept away, these relationships, in which neither alienation nor myth form any part, and these pursuits remain. We may go on hoping to communicate with others by writing even when childish images of fame have vanished. By a curious paradox, it is often at the very moment that the aged man, having become old, has doubts about the value of his entire work that he carries it to its highest point of perfection. This was so with Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Verdi, and Monet. It may be that these doubts themselves help to enrich it. And then again it is often a question of coincidence: Age brings technical mastery and freedom while at the same time it also brings a questioning, challenging state of mind….

Freedom and clarity of mind are not of much use if no goal beckons us anymore: but they are of great value if one is still full of projects. The greatest good fortune, even greater than health, for the old person is to have his world still inhabited by projects: then, busy and useful, he escapes from both boredom and decay. The times in which he lives remain his own, and he is not compelled to adopt the defensive or aggressive forms of behavior that are so often characteristic of the final years….

There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning—devotion to individuals, to groups, or to causes—social, political, intellectual, or creative work. In spite of the moralists’ opinion to the contrary, in old age, we should wish still to have passions strong enough to prevent us from turning in upon ourselves. One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, compassion. When this is so, then there are still valid reasons for activity or speech. People are often advised to “prepare” for old age. But if this merely applies to setting aside money, choosing the place for retirement, and laying on hobbies, we shall not be much the better for it when the day comes. It is far better not to think about it too much, but to live a fairly committed, fairly justified life so that one may go on in the same path even when all illusions have vanished and one’s zeal for life has died away.

Source: The Coming of Age by Simone de Beauvoir. Copyright © 1972 by Andre Deutsch. Reprinted by permission of the Putnam Publishing Group.