Richard Hogan: Mick Jagger's hips don't lie, and neither does his attitude towards ageing

Rather than allowing marketing executives to dictate how we should feel about growing old, maybe it’s time we began celebrating when we reach old age.
If
teaches us anything, (and I’m not sure it does) the human body requires a considerable amount of upkeep. All the exercising, weight lifting, healthy eating, pruning and plucking, "cracking on," (young speak for flirting) and then there’s the inevitability of it all falling apart. You put in all this effort only for time to crumble it. Like a sandcastle built on the water’s edge, the returning tide will tear it down. Our great poet, W.B. Yeats warned us that "things fall apart."Time has an incredible way of humbling the most beautiful among us. There is nothing more fleeting than beauty. We all know this, and yet we fear the ageing process. In T.S. Eliot’s masterpiece,
, the voice in the poem looks into the future and all he finds are meaningless, banal acts of parting his hair, eating a peach and walking on a beach. He rather depressingly declares, "I grow old… I grow old… I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled."Ah, old age! Flannel trousers and ice-cream. Not so! The recent concerts of Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones presented us with quite the alternative vision of old age. Both McCartney and Jagger redefined the possibility of what a septuagenarian and an octogenarian are capable of; Jagger, 78, strutting his stuff, as only Jagger can (hence the song, 'Moves like Jagger') and McCartney, 80, belting out nearly a three-hour set of all his classic hits.
These guys grew up during the Second World War. Together, they not only changed popular music but also changed how we now think about ageing. They are like Yeats' Timon and Blake beating on a wall, refusing to go quietly into the night. Instead, prancing their way into old age with swagger and style. For all of us who admire their talent and charisma, they are now redefining the ageing process.
Not all cultures look at ageing as a negative process. Some even celebrate the elders in society; they respect and value them. But here, in the west, there is a huge industry built around making us feel like we shouldn’t age. Marketing gurus and advertisers want to make us feel that ageing means we are deficient somehow. Like we didn’t have the strength to prevent it from happening.
We must work against those sentiments because they diminish the unique experiences of our lives. Youth is a phase in what is hopefully, our long life trajectories as human beings. And old age is another one of the phases. Each phase has its limitations and its benefits. Youth is all about launching out into the world, taking risks and being adventurous. It has its limitations too; you take the words of others too much to heart. You have to forge a career for yourself, and navigate the dating world, all the while trying to figure out who you are, and what you stand for; all pretty exhausting endeavours.
As we move into the later stages of life, we generally don’t worry too much about what others say about us. That represents a freeing moment when we learn to live with the discomfort of others. We also might be a little more financially secure and have time to really start to do the things we have put off while we were busy making other plans.
So, rather than allowing marketing executives to dictate how we should feel about growing old, maybe it’s time we began celebrating when we reach old age. No easy feat — the Grim Reaper has such a sophisticated arsenal of tools to cut us down at his disposal.
Public figures like Jagger and McCartney are important because they have grown old with dignity and courage. They have shown us, that maybe we can’t stop ageing but we certainly don’t have to be old, per se. The life cycle of humans has increased in the last number of decades, so turning 80 doesn’t mean you have nothing to offer the world. We have to get better at how we look and speak about age. Because it is waiting for all of us.
The pressure on women to look youthful isn’t a new phenomenon, but some of the measures being used to ward off the effects of ageing on the body are. You can see this message propagated by programmes like
, where girls in their early 20s are getting Botox and lip fillers. I know I sound old saying this, but beauty is found in truth. We need to teach young girls to celebrate their bodies, and not to chase some ridiculous idea of agelessness. It doesn’t exist.What we find aesthetically pleasing also depends on the culture we are in. I work in the Philippines and I’m always struck by the whitening agents they have in their soap. Their culture dictates that white is beautiful but here, in the west, brown skin is desirable. Hence, the massive fake tan industry. When I explain this to colleagues in the Philippines, they are always shocked at the idea that western girls would want to have brown skin.
It seems we are not good at appreciating what we have as humans. Growing old is one of life's great inevitabilities. We can fear it, and do everything to stop its process, a tiresome and pointless pursuit or we can embrace it and move like Jagger into it, with style and a little panache.