There was an article today in the Atlantic written by a guy who hopes he passes away at 75. This, he argues, means that he won’t be a burden on his family or society. Underneath this thinly-veiled, supposedly self-sacrificing argument is the socialist thread that seems to be running through everything today. The focus is on long-term costs, long-term this, long-term that. The fact is that older people tend to save their money, have estates, and they also tend to vote conservative, and so all of this is a serious problem, to say nothing of the added health care costs. This belief, that certain elements of society cannot contribute and should therefore be eliminated is nothing more than the latest salvo in an attempt to halve the distance between our current state of affairs and Logan’s Run. Looking at the members of Congress who are now considered senior citizens, one has to seriously wonder if they would really go along with this if it would mean no more thirty-year tenures.

Look, the costs are there. Dying today and getting older is expensive. But to say that a senior citizen contributes less to society than a twenty-something with a hoop hanging out of her nose while working as a barista at Starbucks just seems arrogant to me. Just like how our society has a very narrow view of success – strictly financial – we have a very closed-minded view of what it means to be contributing – again, strictly financial, in the form of taxes. That’s it. We don’t view someone’s art or writing or perspective or smile as a contribution to society.

In Ayn Rand’s Anthem, a copy of an earlier work called We, everyone has their proper place in society, their ‘purpose.’ The state has become the God, and while these people may have purpose they are viewed as easily disposable, just like a worker at a fast-food restaurant. That, it seems to me, is where we are heading. A nation, a culture, a society that views its senior citizens as meaningless, burned-out, used-up individuals who need to pass away and free up room will eventually come to view those who are obese or chronically sick, or in possession of some disability in the same way. The view of people as dollar signs is somewhat of a Republican concept, but it has extended to the Democrats because they know our current system isn’t going to work because we have fewer and fewer younger people willing to find meaningful employment.

I don’t mean jobs – those are out there. I am talking about meaningful employment that brings them joy and happiness.

Now, that term is subjective – some of the happiest days working was when I worked at a gas station in Burlington. In the morning an eighty-something came in to talk with me about the latest book he was reading, and ask me my progress on my own. Another man, a retiree who was on the U.S.S. Arizona, came in and talked with me about life in the navy. Their contribution – a smile, perhaps a cup of coffee or some baked banana bread – was worth more to me than the $8 an hour I was making in 1999-2000.

The real problem isn’t that we view people as useless, unable to contribute, but it is that we have learned to value the wrong things. We no longer value art, and by art I mean literature, images, music. We value commercial crap, rehashed garbage put out without any inspiration. This ties into how we view the older generation. In each senior citizen who smiles is a child, an adult who survived everything this world could throw at him. If they reach the twilight years of their life with a smile on their face, there is literature for you. There’s a story there. We value the wrong things and as a result these stories don’t get told. Our lives are not richer for the loss of these tales, they are poorer.

Growing up I enjoyed the company of older people. I just did. My peers weren’t interesting. But older people could share stories, and the way Aunt Katherine or Uncle Richard or even Uncle Billy’s eyes would light up when they shared some important or unimportant aspect of their lives showed me they still had something to contribute to this world. A story, literature, perhaps a moral allegory, or even a warning to the next generations who think life is all about play and ‘safe zones’ at colleges. These men and women have seen far more than you or I could ever imagine, and they have stories to share. As a writer, I often listen to others share about their lives, and I use that as material for my own works.

A nation that does not value anything other than the financial contribution of its citizens will soon wake up and find it has nothing else.