Elders

Barry Lopez writes:

In traditional villages they’re called the elders, the people who carry the knowledge of what works… Some anthropologists believe that the presence of elders is as important as any technological advancement or material advantage in ensuring that human life continues…

I sat down once at my desk and wrote out the qualities I observed in elders I’d met in different cultures, nearly all of them unknown to one another. Elders take life more seriously. Their feelings toward all life around them are more tender, their capacity for empathy greater. They’re more accessible than other adults, able to engage in a conversation with a child that does not patronize or infantilize the child, but instead confirms the child in his or her sense of wonder. Finally, the elder is willing to disappear into the fabric of ordinary life. Elders are looking neither for an audience nor for confirmation. They know who they are, and the people around them know who they are. They do not need to tell you who they are.

To this list I would add one more thing. Elders are more often listeners than speakers. And when they speak, they can talk for a long while without using the word I.

Living in one of the most highly advanced of human cultures, I often wonder, What have modern cultures done with these people? In our search for heroes to admire, did we just run them over? Were we suspicious about the humility, the absence of self-promotion, the lack of impressive material wealth and other signs of conventional success? Or were we afraid they would tell us a story we didn’t want to hear? That they would suggest things we didn’t want to do?

— From Horizon by Barry Lopez