“The End of Old Age: Living a Longer, More Purposeful Life” by Marc E. Agronin is a guide to growing old with as much grace and vigor as possible. He starts out describing why society needs its elders. In some anthropology books, the authors write that in tribal days, aging was beneficial because an individual who could no longer reproduce was of no use to the tribe. When the elderly died, they cleared the way for young, fertile individuals who could hunt and bear young.
Agronin sees the role of elders as being far more than dying a swift death to make way for the young. He believes that elders had and have many important roles. One is a savant, an individual who knows a great deal about a topic and is able to share that information. Another is a sage — someone with tremendous life experience. Still another is a curator, someone who cares for a valuable object or memory. To illustrate this concept, Agronin uses the example of an elderly woman who spent time in Auschwitz when she was a child. Now an older woman, she brings children to the concentration camp and shares her stories with them. The next role an elder can play is that of creator and a final role is seer.