Don’t ever grow old." I heard this nearly 50 years ago, when the promotion director of Time magazine was admiring the youthful charm of an illustration I had done. "Fat chance!" I thought at the time. But a half century later I can firmly reply, "Not to worry!" I have come to learn, as much from observation as from self-knowledge, that aging is a physical process, not a mental one. Once young, always young. Like the dimples in one’s cheeks or in the cleft in one’s chin, youth is ineradicable. It is a state of mind with which one is either blessed, or isn’t. As Brendan Gill states in Late Bloomers: "Some people in their forties have already put on the habits and habiliments of age; other people in their eighties are invincibly young and, like Lewis Carroll’s prankish Father William, persist in standing on their heads."
These thoughts of "invincible youthfulness" occurred to me when I recently came across an interview of Frank Lloyd Wright. The interview was conducted by the late John Peter, that ageless former president of the Art Directors’ Club of New York whose youthful enthusiasm and energy were boundless. He gave lavish dinners well into his 80s, superb affairs that he cooked, served, and splendidly hosted, always to large gatherings, and almost on a weekly basis. During the interview Wright said, " … Youth is a quality. Sometimes young people have it. They lose it very soon often, but if you have that quality of youth, it never leaves you."
In my animation studio, The Ink Tank, the most youthful person is Tissa David, an animator who must be approaching 80. But 80 could refer to the miles per hour her mind works, or that her arms whirl as she talks about animation. As she is trained in classical music and able to read music, we were initially reluctant to have her animate music videos for such groups as They Might Be Giants. But Tissa was all youthful enthusiasm when we approached her. She tackled the work with all the brio and vigor of a kid—in addition to the enormous artistry and knowledge of a pro who has been in the business for decades, going back to the days of early Disney and UPA.
The bold and energetic accomplishments of what are now euphemistically called "senior citizens" (Hell, call it like it is!) are legendary. Take Buckminster Fuller, the inventor of the Geodesic Dome, as depicted by Brendan Gill. "The older he grew, the more he seemed to defy the second law of thermodynamics by gaining energy in the course of expending it. He would speak at Ciceronian length, hour after hour, and once at a public gathering had to be lifted bodily off the stage in order to permit other speakers their rightful turns. Not in the least offended, Fuller continued his discourse to an audience of stagehands who, like everyone who ever came into his presence, found him well worth listening to." Or take the architect Philip Johnsan, 94 and going strong. Or caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, 95 and still leading the pack. Or Eubie Blake, tickling the keys at 95 on the lawn of the White House. Or…but the list is as long as a cloudless summer day.
There’s a saying to the effect that if you want something done, ask somebody who’s too busy. I’ll amend that: If you want something done, ask somebody who’s already done it. He, or she, will be too bored to repeat it, so what will be done is something different. And isn’t that what creativity is all about?
