I have for many years wondered whether, as I grow old, I should fight against it or gracefully and passively accept it. The poet Dylan Thomas memorably wrote, “Do not go gentle into the good night…Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” It is not clear whether the night he referred to was death, which I suspect it was, but it could just as well and appropriately refer to aging. Either way it is a popular poem because it so sharply presents one clear narrative about accepting our fate.
But there is another popular and clear narrative. Another poet, Robert Browning, wrote some equally oft-quoted lines, “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made…trust God: see all, nor be afraid.”
Then there was the writer Susan Sontag. At one point in her career she declaimed against the idea of a medical “war on death,” but then she fought her coming death from cancer to the bitter end, and her aging along with it.
The trouble with the war metaphor is that you will lose in the end; it is an unwinnable struggle–you will get old and you will die. And sooner may be no worse than later. A good argument against pacifism–which I embrace–is that you should, at least for the sake of those who will miss you, fight at least a little bit. And is not life too valuable to be too readily relinquished, and is it not worth some suffering?
My pacifism has not yet been put to the test, and I may find myself less accepting than I imagine myself to be. I am interested to see how I turn out, waiting and watching.
Daniel Callahan is Senior Research Scholar and President Emeritus of the Hastings Center. www.thehastingscenter.org
