My father (papa, may his soul rest in peace) built a house in Akokwa, Nigeria, which had a back fence of blocks, the top strewn with broken glass and nails. Despite the sharp objects, the lizards, especially the red-headed, droopy-necked ones, rested and crawled over the fence, going from corner to corner.
On the inside side of the fence, about a foot from the wall, was a tall, thin papaya tree. The tree was nearly barren, having fed and bled so many starving children during the war between Biafra and Nigeria. Like red-haired lizards, we children used to look at the papaya tree in the hope that it would produce one more pod. Then we looked at the lizards with hungry eyes and I wondered what they would do next. Would they continue to crawl along the fence, or would they jump into the papaya tree, or would they go down, diagonally through the block fence and down to the ground?
Many fifty-seven-year-old men face the same dilemma as the old red-necked lizards. Your main concern is how to proceed in life. In that space of mental concern, they are faced with at least three options. They could scale to participate in life on a higher level of existence. They could continue on the uniform pedestal of wear, reflecting the way they have lived their entire lives. His third option, which as I recall none of the lizards chose, would be to surrender to the demands of society and run aground.
It may seem unimportant, but the decisions we make at age fifty-seven can determine the way we live the rest of our lives. It is not that the decisions (material and moral) that people make at any age cannot be made or undone, but while a young person can recover quickly from a bad decision, an older person may not.
According to an Igbo proverb, the wood that people gathered when they were young is what they will use in old age. On the surface, this proverb implies that they should work hard when they are young, then bend over and rest when they are old. Such a practice, if carried out, would lead to a deterioration of physical and mental health. The evidence from those who have chosen to do so is self-evident. A resurgence of creative energy, rather than a decline, is what people need as they age.
Men who, at fifty-seven years old, let their body and their senses run down the same trailing path will sooner or later surrender to life’s challenges. They may have thought of themselves as living a stable life, but stability does not exist in the universe. The status quo is never found in nature.
No one needs more than a second of thought to understand that there is a continual deterioration within the perceived realm of balance. A wrinkled skin that everyone can see, but no one sees the internal organs. Even though they are hidden, the brain, kidneys, liver and guts still wrinkle and tire as much as the skin. This explains why fifty-seven men quickly run out of breath, gain weight if they drink a bottle of beer, stout, beer, or soda, develop mental confusion if someone challenges their thinking, and often suffer from urinary dysfunction and genitals.
An active lifestyle rather than a stable lifestyle is the answer to old age. The body is like a house. To maintain cleanliness, homes must be swept, painted, and aired. Likewise, for fifty-seven-year-old men to keep going, they must lead an active lifestyle. Fat and fat accumulation is your greatest enemy. Move it! Don’t get buried in fat. Hit the gym, jog, lift weights, play soccer, play basketball, run, and do your best to stay as slim as the slender papaya tree.
Also, men at fifty-seven must choose what they eat. Salt is your greatest enemy. Avoid it hard! Half a teaspoon of iodized salt is all the body needs in a day. Resist being fed like a greedy baby who eats whatever is put in front of him. Order meals that follow your new diet. At fifty-seven, you’ve earned the right to request what kind of food someone places in front of you. Cook them yourself, if for some reason those around you don’t care about healthy living aspirations. Hopefully his mother taught him to cook when he was a child.
In his stage seven theory of psychosocial development (stagnation versus generativity), Erik Erikson imagined that fifty-seven-year-old men were proud of their continued achievements or sad if they lost motivation. The status quo would not be enough for men of this age. New advancements in this period of life, Erikson said, lead to a happier man or woman. Like many psychologists and psychoanalysts, Erikson was interpreting what I think he saw in the interaction between man and society. What Erikson did not say explicitly, but which I consider essential to understand, is that man is always responsible to the community, doing what society forces him to do.
On a closer look, any keen observer would conclude that society has always been both the bane and the savior of man. Society says, “Do your part and get out of the human stage or else we’ll get you out.” Man plays according to the rules established by society. The age of fifty-seven is the perfect time to get rid of society and chart our own destiny.
In what I call Society’s Expectation Theory (SET), society expects the elderly to pass quickly so that the younger ones can fill their jobs, their ranks, and of course inherit whatever wealth they have acquired. We need to be aware of SET to protect ourselves from its consequences. SET, as you might imagine, is even worse in some cultures.
To all the men who turned fifty-seven this year, I say, look ahead; undertake a new endeavor. Let your brain and mind spin like a windmill. If you are an engineer, enter law school; If you are an accountant, enter medical school. Start a philanthropic organization. Write in memory. There is nothing that anyone cannot do if they turn their mind on.
Whatever you choose, never take the easy way out and run aground. None of the red-necked lizards descended from the top of the wall when we observed them, and neither should fifty-seven-year-old men.
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