Humans are mortals. And all mortals are doomed to grow old; as time goes by, their skin becomes wrinkled and saggy, their internal organs deteriorate, and their physical strength declines. That is why King Solomon metaphorically advised us to remember our Creator before we get too old: “before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well.” Indeed, it is so sad to watch people getting old: weather-beaten skin with age spots here and there and frost-covered thin gray hair. Perhaps that was why Buddha put “getting old” as the second of his famous four agonies of human beings: “life, oldness, sickness, death.”

W. B. Yeats was a poet who was especially conscious of his aging body and soul as he grew old. In a terse poem titled “Youth and Age” he writes: “Much did I rage when young/ Being by the world oppressed/ But now with flattering tongue/ It speeds the parting guest.” In another poem, “When You Are Old,” which the poet wrote when he was young, Yeats delineates an old man’s predicament with a touch of pathos: “When you are old and gray and full of sleep/ And nodding by the fire, take down this book/ And slowly read, and dream of the soft look/ Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.” In “Among School Children,” which Yeats wrote at the age of 60, the poet once again recollects his childhood with nostalgia, while looking at the young children in a classroom.

Recently, I met an eminent American professor who had just turned 75. He told me that he was considering retiring within a year or so. “But you don’t have to retire, do you?” I asked him. “American professors can be active as long as they want. Why, then, do you consider retirement?”

“Well, when I go to the faculty meeting,” answered the senior professor sadly, “I get this feeling that younger faculty members seem to think, or even whisper, ‘What’s that old man doing here?’ Then they seem to give me the evil eye.” The professor chuckled wryly, adding, “When young, I used to say: ‘Why is that old professor still hanging around? Why is he not retiring yet?’ Now I am an old man and I’m almost sure that young professors are whispering the same thing to me.” Then he added rather playfully, “Old professors never die. They just fade away.”

He used to be one of the big names on campus, which attracted so many students from all over the world, and he was also one of the most admired, popular professors in the English Department. He even received the prestigious Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Teaching and the Best of the Best Book Award. Now simply because he was old, this eminent professor was forced to feel alienated from his younger colleagues and students. That made me sad.

However, that is life and we cannot stop the process of aging. And that is also history and the transition of generations. As Solomon wrote in “Ecclesiastes,” “Vanity of vanities ... all is vanity. What profit has a man of all his labor which he takes under the sun? One generation passes away, and another generation comes: but the Earth abides forever. The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hurries to his place where he arose.”

This was what Solomon felt after spending a glorious life as the king of Israel.

It never seems to occur to young people that someday they, too, will be old and wrinkled. In the 1960s, young people audaciously proclaimed: “Don’t trust anybody over thirty.” In the 1950s Nat King Cole sang on behalf of the younger generation: “They try to tell us we’re too young/ Too young to really be in love/. . . And yet we’re not too young to know/ This love will last though years may go/ And then someday may recall/ we were not too young at all.”

Soon, however, the young people will become old, perhaps too old to fall in love again. Then they will recall the famous song of Mary Hopkins: “Those were the days, my friend/ We thought they’d never end.” But our youth will surely cease some day.

These days, young people no longer seem to respect old people. In fact, various derogatory adjectives are attached to old people such as “dirty old man,” “greedy old man,” and “pathetic old man.” Respect is not something that is given to your age automatically; you must earn it. Unfortunately, some old people fail to do so.

Nevertheless, the older generation, ruthlessly pushed by the young these days, would probably want to sing like this: “They try to tell us we’re too old/ Too old to really be in something/ And yet we’re not too old to do things/ Our strength and wisdom will last though years may go/ And then someday they may recall/ we were not too old at all.” 

By Kim Seong-kon

Kim Seong-kon, a professor of English at Seoul National University, is editor of the literary quarterly “21st Century Literature.” ― Ed.