There comes a time in everyone's life, although the exact age varies a lot, when the body gives the mind of a surprise. It usually happens this way:
You're doing something you've done many times before. It's an activity that takes a fair bit of effort, but not so much that you have to really focus. It has always been closer to an automatic activity in that you've never had to think about the details. It may be something like lifting a heavy box of books or moving in a certain way that requires some agility. Anyway on this particular day you get a message from your body saying "Hey, this is a strain on me and I'm going to let upstairs [the brain] know it!" You might get mildly sharp twinge or some other signal that wakes you up and brings you straight back to reality. For a moment you are really surprised… "What just happened, you ask yourself?". The body comes back with an immediate answer "We are getting old." The first time this happened the average person goes straight into denial. "Me?, I'm still in good shape… Etc." then, the following day, as though to emphasize the original point made by the body, you wake up and you are a stiff as a 2 x 4 piece of wood. There's no avoiding this message, you are indeed getting older.
I suspect for most people this comes as a dramatic shock. Over the next few months a person usually begins to notice other little things that confirm their age. Some people handle this transition well, some not so well. In either case it is something we all go through but it is an intensely personal experience. The world doesn't quite "fit as well as it used to" and as time passes you begin to look for alternate ways of doing things. Maybe for the first time in your life you actually walk up the wheelchair ramp to the entrance of your favourite store.
For people that are able-bodied it is not until later in life that they realize just how customized the modern world is toward the physically fit, or at least the physically mobile. Everything from tabletops to bank machines is designed around being able to walk up to them. The printing on the display screen is similarly sized for normal vision. The list of things goes on and on that are aimed toward the able-bodied "normal" people.
Now imagine you're disabled as a child and so your entire life is based upon adapting to this weird world made for "normal" people. You naturally have to put your brain in gear much earlier in life to figure out things. There is also a downside though sometimes you may rely on the parts of your body that work well beyond what is normally expected of them and so later in life those parts where out first. This is exactly what happened to me. So now we have a disability with age layered on top of that. I'll tell you one thing you are very protective of everything you can do. Even if it sometimes means putting yourself through a great amount of difficulty. But this isn't necessarily the way to go, common sense must take precedence over ego.
From my perspective, people with lifelong disabilities, provided they can come to terms with the various differences in their lives and the general dynamic of dealing with people, have an edge when it comes to aging. The change is not usually so big, at least not right away and we can also have a lifetime of insight which is not normally available to the able-bodied simply because they have never needed to deal with existence and life on a more granular level. The world and modern society are more or less billed for them automatically taking into account the average capabilities of the human being. So you never have to worry about getting into a movie theatre, you know you will be able to get in ahead of time and the seats as well as washrooms will be no difficulty. Then along comes old age and the poor able-bodied person has to take a crash course in disability. Though I suspect disabled people must temper their perceptions as well, because being able-bodied may not be a walk in the park either. You are pretty much on your own if you are able-bodied. Society expects you to figure everything out, and just in case you don't, the jails of the world can accommodate you.
Writing this short text has really got me appreciating how much each side of humanity can learn from the other. No one has a perfect and for every angle or door we see there are uncountable avenues which we don't perceive. Maybe that's the point of life just to discover and understand what you can?
Still though aging with disability is really a course in fine-tuning what you already know. Getting out that magnifying glass and looking at issues in never finer detail. Or occasionally feeling the impact of the arthritis and knowing that your limitations and abilities are in flux. This is the fine print which we all must ultimately pay attention to and with a little bit of work hopefully understand. Most of the time it is "Fascinating!… (Thank you Mr. Spock)"
As a sign thought with all the talk about artificial intelligence beginning to develop rapidly I wonder what an AI's interpretation of aging would be and including all that is been mentioned in this article?. Would an AI have the same perspective in regards to an earlier version of itself perhaps built on different equipment? At least for the human race nobody as far as I know has had a upgrade to their physiology at least not for the modern human being. We are all the same version hardware wise.
As I think about it and thoughts are just occurring to me randomly, I do believe that aging can teach us lessons which can only be learned by going through the process. We can however convey to our fellow species some semblance of what it is like. That is pretty remarkable in my book.
Take care Patrick
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