Life as a Journey Toward Dignified Aging

Asahi Shimbun Morning Edition, January 9, 1999

When one starts to sigh unconsciously upon seeing young people dressed in their formal attire for the Coming-of-Age ceremony, perhaps it marks one’s entry into “middle and old age.” Some people become depressed, seeing aging—an inevitability for all living beings—as something ugly. On the other hand, there are those who, even past seventy, still desire Viagra. Aging, too, can be a source of stress.

One man, emaciated and visiting a psychiatrist, had traveled the world and built his fortune from scratch. He had several mistresses and once boasted, “One body isn’t enough for me.” He was meticulous about his health, but was eventually diagnosed with liver cancer. From that moment on, he couldn’t sleep, fell into deep despair to the point of contemplating suicide, and began to see everything as meaningless.

Many films depict elderly people reflecting on their youth when faced with death. Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish director who explored people’s fear of death during the plague and questioned the existence of God in The Seventh Seal (1956), also dealt with the theme of aging in Wild Strawberries (1957).

On the morning of the ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of his doctorate, an elderly scholar who had contributed to the field of medicine dreams of encountering his own dead body in a deserted town. He changes his plans from flying to the ceremony to instead traveling by car, passing by the house where he grew up and the land where he once ran a clinic. Along the way, he meets young people and middle-aged couples, and his memories of youth resurface. It’s a Bergman-style road movie where past and present intertwine.

René Clair also tackled this theme in La Beauté du Diable (1949), featuring Faust and Mephistopheles.

Elderly people live within vivid, emotionally charged memories while gazing at both the present and the dwindling future. Accepting aging is a key psychiatric issue in an aging society.

At the far end of the challenges of life and death lies aging. Perhaps life is a journey toward dignified aging.