Russell
has once written in one of his essays to explain “Old”. In the article, he said
that the young were afraid of growing old, for they were still in the most
vigorous situation, desiring to make a big difference to the world. However the
old shouldn’t be afraid of it, for they have lived so long and seen so many
things. When I was reading the sentences, what came to me was that we needed to
be happy to grow old. Happy, a thing of human’s choice during our life, is
caused by the daily increasing knowledge with an “unhappy” process of growing
old.
Why
should we be happy to grow old? Russell, in his own opinion, gave the illusion
that the process of living is one with gaining knowledge unendingly. During the
long river of your life, you first vigorously flow down the mountain within the
narrow banks; then the energy diminishes and the water became slow and
peaceful; and at last you are absorbed by the whole human sea. Life, accompany
by experiences, is a period of growing wisdom and losing vigor. Sometimes we
might be confused by the process and are quite reluctant to accept the truth of
being old. In contrast we are willingly receiving the knowledge we have gained
through time. This “lost and found” game makes us tired, but happy at the same
time.
Tiredness
and happiness are always accompanied; you are gaining while you are losing. If
you didn’t make any progress, you wouldn’t go through obstacles. What’s more,
when you make effort, you are experiencing a hard period, during which you face
an imperfect you and try to exercise yourself again and again by polishing off those
shortcomings. But it is you who must choose an attitude to live. No matter what
you are facing, whether it is a disease or a study problem, you gain all kinds
of knowledge or experience when growing old.
So growing old is not something to be afraid of.
What should attract our attention is that when growing old we need to be happy,
for the knowledge we gain, and for which we will pass on to the later
generations. Just be happy of growing old.