I arrived in St. Lucia yesterday after an all-night flight and
grabbed the first taxi in line. The driver was an “old” guy who wasn’t
talkative and didn’t seem too happy. We had a 90-minute ride to the
hotel on the other side of the Island, so after a while I tried to make
conversation by asking some inane questions like “How many people live
here?” and “Have you lived here all your life?” The driver’s responses
were more like New York City than what I expected in the Caribbean:
“Didn’t you read anything about our Island before coming?”, and
“Everybody asks me that stupid question – where do you think a black
man my age would be from, driving a taxi on a Sunday afternoon?”

Okay,
he got me. I was embarrassed, but mentioned something about coming to
give a speech on aging. He laughed and started telling me how stupid
the topic was, that aging is just a natural part of living, like dying
is natural as well, and that’s all there is to say about it. I pressed
him a bit by suggesting that while the process of aging is natural, our
experience of it is largely cultural and not always the same from one
culture to another.

For the next hour, we had a delightful exchange. This retired school
principal showed me that in St. Lucia, people have the same fears and
concerns about getting older as we do, that entropy and loneliness are
the biggest threats to well-being. His wife lives on another island,
and he spends days at a time without talking to another soul. As we
talked, I learned that people on the island generally retire younger
than in North America— usually in their 50s. I also learned that he
took his first vacation off the island 5 years ago and loved it, and
now looks forward to his annual adventure to new places. He thanked me
for the conversation, saying how much he missed having thoughtful
dialogue since retiring and how so many of the people he drives are
either drunk or so self-absorbed that there is no room for connecting.
His biggest quandary is whether to move to the island where his wife
lives and risk falling into even more isolation or keeping as active as
possible for as long as possible.

St. Lucians get older like the rest of us. I hope that some of what
we are exploring and creating in North America can extend to other
parts of the world as well.

For me, my new friend Ryan Baptiste has opened my eyes again to the
fact that who people are is a whole lot more important and more
interesting than how old they are and our first impressions.