Letter of praise to Elderliness

Solomeo, 3 September 2024

Now comes the evening of my life, and my eyes see the world through the colour of honey, which is the shade light takes on when the sun, falling between the mountains, turns everything to gold. Now everything is more benevolent and available to me, and I myself have become more tolerant and patient than when I was a boy.

A new life is about to begin, one that both fascinates and frightens me; but unlike when, many years ago, I faced tomorrow without a thought, now I feel the need to reflect, to figure out how to prepare myself for the new, I start thinking about a plan, just as I had learned at school, starting from reflecting on experiences.

However, I realise that the plan I now wish to devise is of a new kind, it does not have the same merely pragmatic nature as the others, one gets lost in it like in a labyrinth.

What will I do in these new days? How will I answer the questions? What will my new image look like? I seek help for these questions, and I sincerely appreciate the words of Schopenhauer on old age, though somewhat tinged with disappointment; I listen fascinated to those of Seneca, soft as caresses, but perhaps also a little melancholic.

Then, in order to figure it all out, I think back to the attitude of this or that gentleman I knew in my youth, like my grandfather, whose old age had not stolen his smile or his joie de vivre, and had given him a wise irony. And I have discovered that, for those who wish, this stage of life brings with it an enchanted flower, and that flower is wisdom. Now I am able to tell a thousand fabulous and true adventures, and my eyes see things never seen before.

I reflect, and I believe that, in the end, there is no plan to be made; instead, there is much strength, there is in the heart a spring that was small long ago, but now, with time, has become bigger and everlasting. That is why Solon stated: "I grow old constantly learning many things".

I no longer believe that things depend solely on reason, because I see that many times the hand of chance grants success even to what lacks logic. I notice that in many circumstances, as Goethe thought, happiness offsets unhappiness, and, for this reason, I feel a little mystical, and I feel my heart, which had become somewhat turbulent, calming down.

I have learnt many things on a journey that has been, and still is, courageous. But now that the noise of the world is muffled for me, in the tower of my study in Solomeo, and since there is more quiet around me, that dialogue with myself and with the ancient men I have long pursued is beginning to become a concrete and continuous divine nourishment. Those great masters of the past, those thoughtful sages, speak to me and tell me that the evening of life, for all men and women, beyond religions and cultures, brings mankind closer to the heavens.

Then, we see more light, we embrace wider horizons, and perhaps we can even touch those stars that we have admired and longed for on so many nights, when, in times of difficulty, we looked up, asking them to show us the way of life.