英語趣談:Aging可以不令人沮喪

加拿大都市网

Age解年齡,是個中性的字。 What is your age?(你幾多歲?)問的是客觀的事實,不一定要勾起情緒的反應,不過成年以後,大家都不喜歡談年齡,年齡愈大愈抗拒。

Aged是形容詞,解有關歲數的;例如︰The marvelous piano recital was performed by a boy, aged 11.(精採的鋼琴獨奏,表演的是一名11歲的男孩。)Aged亦可解having lived or existed for a long time或very old,年邁的;例如︰He is an aged man with white hair.(他是一名白髮蒼蒼的老翁。)Aging解the process of growing old,變老的過程、老化。年老體力衰退、多病痛,失去工作能力。就算仍然有心有力,也要被迫退休,制度如此,沒辦法。 Aged一無是處,所以沒有人真心喜歡與aged扯上關係,當然也不想被人用aged這個字來形容。

社會邊緣

人的壽命愈來愈長,大部分人六七十歲依然健壯,活到85歲以上也一點不出奇,但現今社會的觀念和實況對年長的人並不友善。 Thomas Cole和Mary Winkler的The Oxford Book of Aging書介有這樣的觀察:

… our culture offers few convincing(令人信服的) ways to help us find purpose in our later years. The ancient and medieval(中世紀的) vision of aging as a mysterious part of the eternal order of things has given way to the secular(世俗的), scientific, and individualistic(個人主義的) outlook of modernity.

No longer seen as a way station(中途小站) along life’s spiritual journey, old age has been redefined as a problem to be solved by science and medicine. Older people have been moved to society’s margins(邊緣), and, as a result , we have become uncertain about what it means to age.

古代或什至中世紀年代,社會對年老的觀念有別於今天的摩登想法。以往,大家覺得年老是人生旅程的一個中途站,還帶點神秘感,但今時今日,老年人被重新定性為一個科學與醫療要解決的問題,老人家被推到社會邊緣,所以在老年的問題上,大家都不大知道應該怎樣自處。

這樣觀察絕對準確,在世界很多地方,aging population(老化的人口)並不是被視作值得慶幸的事,連中性也不是,而是個迫切要解決的問題。報章頭條用上”time bomb”(計時炸彈)、”cause for concern”(值得關注)等字眼。政府的文獻圓滑點,但也見”demographic challenge”(人口上的挑戰)等方法來形容人口老化的「問題」。

其實,年老等於「風燭殘年」只是一種想法,生命中每個階段都有它的意義,有問題也有可以慶幸和享受自處。 Martha Nussbaum和Saul Levmore在Aging Thoughtfully: Conversations about Retirement, Romance, Wrinkles, and Regret中寫道:

Aging is many other things. For some people, it might be about regretting, worrying, hoarding(聚積錢財), and needing. It can also be about volunteering(做), comprehending(理解), guiding, rediscovering, forgiving, and with increasing frequency, forgetting.

老年典型

社會一早就向我們灌輸種種aging stereotype(老年的典型),這些典型化的觀念一生困擾我們,所以專家忠告:Whatever it takes, realize that aging is cultural as well as physical. If you live – or grew up – in an ageist(有年齡歧視的) society like the US, make a conscious decision to reject harmful stereotypes of aging. Your brain, and possibly your body, will thank you.

想辦法對抗這些令人沮喪的、對老年人的典型化想法,對身心都有益處!

share to wechat

延伸阅读

share to wechat

延伸阅读

share to wechat

加拿大人口突破新门槛 从4000万到4100万仅用数个月

消息人士:安省国际学生名额 96%分配给公立学院和大学