Becoming A Good Elder
After You Grow Up, Its Time To Grow Down
I typically shy away from offensive slang. But, in the case of Cash Ahenakew’s“anti-as*holism memo,” I beg your forgiveness. He, in effect, posits that we need to admit that we are rotten, decadent, deteriorated, and corrupt if we are going to be able to do what we must; which is, to break the trance-inducing spell of modernism and colonialism, to declutter our lives, and to “get out of the mess we have created” (https://decolonialfutures.net/portfolio/towards-eldering/)
In doing so, we would “become good elders and ancestors for all relations, both human and non-human.” Such “elduring” would put a person with expanded holistic capacities “in service of something much bigger” than themselves. Elduring usually occurs right when a person’s physical capacities are declining and the end is drawing near.
Ahenakew’s four holistic capacities are:
the capacity to be present to the complex reality of things;
the capacity to “enact visceral responsibility: to face responsibilities without excuse…even if it goes against one’s self-interest;”
“the capacity to put oneself in service while divesting from the desire to be remembered for that service;”
the capacity to offer a compass that can help people navigate towards collective/metabolic health and wellbeing without imprinting one’s own projections onto someone else’s path.
Ahenakew asserts that, to obtain such maximized traits, a person seeking to become an elder no longer needs to grow up, but instead needs to grow down in the following ways:
Feeling less of a need to be included, understood, or validated.
Feeling less of a need for others to see you the way you want them to see you.
Rather than intensities, feeling the craving for depth and epiphanies.
Being able to identify toxic patterns of behavior.
Relieving yourself from the burden of always being right.
Staying with what is difficult, irritating, and painful.
Spotting overreactions, de-escaling, apologizing, and making up for mistakes.
Being unhaunted by pain and death.
Being in contact with previous and future ancestral relations.
Trusting one’s gut.
Offering differing perspectives without causing a fuss.
Welcoming uncertainty.
Accepting the cards one has been dealt and putting them to good service.
Sharing what you have and what you have been taught.
Shedding of arrogance.
Deploying humor.
Being aware of one’s own flaws.
Seeking to refrain from using past traumas to justify indulgences or irresponsibilities.
Establishing boundaries, quickly and unapologetically.
Resting and recovering.
Not being intense all the time.
Delivering earnestness and candor with grace and compassion.
Learning from mistakes.
Letting go of things while honoring relationships.
Early spotting of unwise directions.
Seeking the best for those who are hostile.
Expecting the betrayal of your expectations.
Asking friends for reality checks.
