Editorial April 24, 1995 Issue

Advancing years—years of improvement

Russ Gerber

Dashing up the stairway. Walking briskly along the shore. Putting away the groceries. Firmly shaking someone's hand. These are pretty routine actions, but they express life and vigor, and they're actions we control. But what about a decline or loss of physical activity? Weakness and disability are often attributed to aging and are thought to be beyond our control. Our bodies can act against our will, can't they?

This question may represent a common view about the quality of life that comes with advancing years, but it doesn't represent the view of many good thinkers today, or of many thinkers throughout history. Some recent best-selling books on aging and health indicate a growing awareness that decline and disease are not built into advancing years, any more than vitality and promise belong exclusively to the young.

Underlying much of what these thinkers are saying is an acceptance of the fact that thought governs the body, not the other way around. In Science and Health, a book first published one hundred and twenty years ago, Mary Baker Eddy writes of what she terms mortal mind. In one place she says: "All voluntary, as well as miscalled involuntary, action of the mortal body is governed by this so-called mind, not by matter. There is no involuntary action" (p. 187). It comes as a great relief to old and young alike to realize that we aren't at the mercy of a self-acting material body, as we may have believed we were.