Ageing gracefully—I don’t know, perhaps I am though there are times I feel more like an old man stumbling and bashing my way through the thick scrub of time. As I age, the scrub gets thicker and meaner. Take yesterday for example, my left knee started aching; it felt like a toothache deep in the very core of my knee. Though if I think about why my knee would start aching, I’d have to confess that I have been eating a couple of things that contain dairy products, and that’s not wise. Dairy is an aggravator of arthritic problems. So, as you can see, the answer to any hope of ageing gracefully is all about looking after your body. But there is more to it than eating the right tucker today: to age gracefully, one must make preparations when one is young. This is what we call preventative medicine.
Why haven’t I been practicing what I preach? Well, most of the time I do—only very occasionally I do the odd unwise thing (and that’s ok so long as they are few). It is just that my body is rather unforgiving because when I was young I served this country. The armed forces push your body just a bit too far; war hammers a permanent ache or two into place; when you are young you feel immortal (particularly when you are forced to face your mortality every day); and when you are young and immortal you take liberties with your body (that in reality may not be yours to take). I was not quite so wise yesterday as I might be today.
On the other hand, I’ve been wiser for the last quarter century or more, why doesn’t that count? Well, it does. Go to your local chemist and see just how many older people are lining up to get their prescriptions filled. I’m not having to pop lots of non-steroidal anti-inflams to deal with this knee. I can stop the pain with a slight modification to my diet—then graceful ageing can continue. Well not quite; I’ve a few other scars from the sixties that twinge or rankle. I guess what I’m saying is that if you do a reasonably good job with your body today, you will reap the benefits tomorrow.
I was taking some experts through the bush one day several years ago and pointing out things as I went. One of the people was a woman in her early fifties and she asked: What did Aboriginal women do when they came to menopause? How did they handle problems like hot flushing and so forth? Mostly there were no problems, was my reply. If you live a life without undue stress, eat the right foods and live the sort of life that fits the way we are designed, then menopause is a natural process and should proceed naturally—without undue disturbance. This poor woman was incensed, she believed she lived a healthy life, yet she was having problems. Simply her overreaction to what I had said was, in itself, an indicator of just how out of balance she was (and also to the level of the problems she was suffering). Twenty-first century people don’t live natural lives. They don’t eat natural foods. Just about everything they eat is pre-digested; they never leave the breast (they continue drinking milk); and what about the stress? Menopause is a natural process; an abnormal reaction is indicative of an abnormality causing the problem. The same can be said of ageing: ageing is a normal process, and so long as we have lived a reasonably normal, healthy, and natural life, we should proceed through the ageing process reasonably naturally.
People might say, Ah, but we live longer today than your ancestors did. Well, that might have some truth in it. However, most people who live longer do so in a senile state in an old persons nursing home or hospital; so what is the advantage? My great-grandfather was born into a tribal life in the 1850’s and he lived tribally until he was in his twenties. Pretty much all of the time my mother knew him and all of the time I knew him he still went naked and lived in a bark lean-to and ate bush tucker. He died when I was nine and he’d have been around a century old. Genetics and a good life determined his ageing: which I must say was vital, boisterous, and graceful ageing.
Now, life occasionally throws us a curly one and such things have their ramifications. The armed services and war was one of mine, I dare say you’ve had a problem or two yourself. As the old proverb goes: shit happens. And our bodies can deal with most of the littler ones. But the big ones are going to roughen the track through ageing later in your life. There is no way out of it. It did in the traditional Aboriginal communities pre-white fella, and it will happen to pretty much all of us today. The trick for us is to pass through life with as little shit as possible. And the best thing you can do to minimize problems is to live well in your now. Grace begets grace. If you want to have a graceful passage through old age, then live a graceful life today.
Having said that, living a graceful and natural life today isn’t going to give you a longer life - necessarily; genetics determines some of what may happen to you. You may have to pay for the sins of your mothers and fathers; but if you live gracefully today, your bequest to your children and grandchildren will be that much richer. Too many people think that they have to live hard and work hard to prepare the road for their children; it is far wiser to live gently and work gracefully in that preparation. It is all about practicing preventative medicine.
I’m an old bugger—I know these things. Take some advice from your elder. You know, I wish I understood this back a long time ago when I was a young fella. My wife and children pay the price now—as, of course do I—for that ignorance.

Kakkib li’Dthia Warrawee’a is a Doctor of Ya-idt’midtung Medicine and Spiritual Teacher/Philosopher

The image published with this article is a painting by artist Judy Prosser: www.judyprosser.com.au.