
Image by Monica Di Loxley on Unsplashl
The New York Times had an article about retiring.
They asked about people to describe their experiences with retirement. One person wrote:
“Old age is like the fourth quarter of a basketball game. Time for the stars to really shine.
But is that really a valid analogy?
In the last few minutes of a game, it’s not always time for the stars to shine. If it’s not a close game, you spend the last few minutes waiting for the thing to end. It’s time for the subs to come in and show what they can do.
If your side is ahead, you start celebrating. If you’re the losers, you want to get out of there as fast as possible. But it’s all over and done. The game is decided.
There’s a similar problem with the term “encore careers.” I’ve written elsewhere about this. People love the term.
An encore is not a “second act.” An encore is a bit of fluff that’s designed to manipulate the audience into thinking they’ve got more than their money/s worth.
Then there’s the metaphor that people become more valuable with age, just like fine wine.
The problem is, if you want to age wine, you have to keep it under special temperature and lighting conditions. An article in Forbes points out that not all wine gets better with age. And for any wine, there’s a maximum of aging. At a certain point the wine quality declines.
Contemporary wine-makers don’t want to age wine the old way, says the articles. We can make chemical changes instead. We move to market faster instead of paying to store the wine.
Each metaphor might spark a discussion about what old age really means.
If it’s like the last five minutes of a basketball game, then you know the end is coming. Some people get to enjoy those last few minutes; some don’t. But it ends for everybody. And of course some teams have to keep fighting to the finish.
But let’s not over-simplify when we talk about age. Most of the metaphors of aging are designed to reinforce the stereotypes. As people get older, they’re sidelined or irrelevant. Or they’re an afterthought. Or they lose quality if. they hang on too long.
Lose the metaphors. And lose the stereotypes.