T.O.P. Podcast - Episode 10: The Dignity of Aging: From Cicero to Sinatra

Aging. It’s universal, it’s relentless, and it’s something that every culture and every era has had to reckon with. From the philosophers of ancient Rome to modern-day music legends, the question remains: what does it really mean to grow old? Is it decline, wisdom, endurance, or something else entirely?

In this episode of the TOP Podcast, Michael DiMatteo takes you on a journey through the history, literature, and culture of aging. We begin with Cicero’s De Senectute (On Old Age), where the Roman statesman argued that while the body weakens, the mind and memory can flourish — old age as a harvest, a crown of life. Then we step into Shakespeare’s darker vision, where aging is “second childishness and mere oblivion,” a slow march toward dependence and loss. Hemingway enters next with Santiago, the aged fisherman of The Old Man and the Sea, embodying endurance: frail in body but unbroken in spirit.

From there, we move into popular culture, where America’s obsession with youth collides with the reality of age. We confront denial in commercials that promise to “fight” aging, but we also find reverence in the weathered pride of Clint Eastwood, the battered honesty of Johnny Cash, and even the wistful grace of Frank Sinatra’s “It Was a Very Good Year.”Each offers a different sound, a different face of what it means to age.

But aging isn’t just for the philosophers and the stars. It’s lived every day in families and communities — and in this episode, Michael draws from his own work, Falling Leaves, to bring that truth home. In Musings of an Old Man, an eighty-nine-year-old narrator strips away the masks of denial, confessing the loneliness and truth of old age. In John and Gloria, we witness love carried through decline, memory, and even into absence — a reminder that family and companionship are the anchors of dignity in the face of time.

This episode explores how class has always shaped the experience of aging. Senators in Rome lived long enough to reflect; peasants in Elizabethan fields did not. In Hemingway’s Cuba, a fisherman works until he dies, while in modern America, the wealthy prolong their years with comfort, and the working class ages faster under the weight of labor. Yet despite these divisions, one truth remains: aging, no matter your station in life, need not be without dignity.

Aging is not an abstraction. It is harvest and decline, endurance and loss, memory and love. It is the reckoning of a life lived.

Join Michael DiMatteo for this deep dive into the meaning of aging — in history, literature, music, and lived experience. And discover why, in the end, aging is bearable, even beautiful, when it is carried with dignity and lived in the presence of family.

Michael DiMatteo is the author of Falling Leaves, Confessions of a High School Football Coach, the Flavius Fettotempi series, and his newest work, Bloodlines: A Story of Memory, Silence, and Family. Learn more at www.mrdwrites.com.