Wrinkles

 

Wrinkles

                    General Douglas MacArthur, with his corncob pipe

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

I wrote the following quotation in my Commonplace book a few years ago and wanted to learn a little more about it.

‘Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.’

Samuel Ullman (1840 – 1924)

These lines come from Ullman’s poem ‘Youth’, written when he was 78. It was a favourite poem of General Douglas MacArthur, who was deputed to oversee the rebuilding of Japan after the end of WWII.

 When he was appointed Supreme Allied Commander in Japan from 1945 to 1951 he had a copy of the poem on his office wall. It became very familiar to the Japanese, who admired the General and his diligent work routine. MacArthur regularly quoted from the poem in his speeches, which inspired a nation occupied in rebuilding their ravaged country.

From Birmingham Historical Society:

‘In 1945, Reader’s Digest published the poem and reported that MacArthur posted the poem in his office. Yoshio Okasa, a Japanese businessman, upon reading the article, was inspired to create a beautiful and moving translation in Japanese and display it in his offices. The popularity of “Youth” in Japan soared. Many carried folded-up copies of the poem in their pockets and wallets. 

In 1985, the Youth Association was formed in Tokyo. Its corporate and individual members across Japan are encouraged to study “Youth” and the writings of other philosophers and to share the joy and hope expressed in the poem. 

Writing in 1992, Jiro M. Miyazawa, who wanted to share the message of the poem and who had distributed more than 10,000 copies across Japan, stated: “Japan has been completely rebuilt since the devastation of World War II. I believe Samuel Ullman’s poem ‘Youth’ played a part in this process by sustaining the Japanese mind with its inspiring message.’

YOUTH

 Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing, child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you young.

 When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.

 In 2020, Birmingham Historical Society published an article about Samuel Ullman.