INTERVIEW - "You can't just put us in the closet as old white men" – Roger Schawinski and Jürg Acklin on their 80th birthday

Mr. Schawinski, you'll be 80 in a few days. You, Mr. Acklin, turned 80 in February. What has changed since then, and what does Mr. Schawinski need to prepare for?

Jürg Acklin: They always say you're only as old as you feel. But for the first time, I realized that the number of your age and your self-perception have something to do with each other. You climb a mountain, and when you get to the top, you're 80. When you look out into the distance from there, there's no real horizon anymore. The horizon evaporates, and from now on, you cautiously walk into old age. That's one thing.

What else is it?

Acklin: Philip Roth, the American writer, said that old age is a massacre. For a long time, I thought: fine, writerly freedom. But he's not entirely wrong. As you approach 80, old age is no longer like a military maneuver; it's now a real emergency. Every now and then, a bullet actually gets fired. That's what happened to me when I suffered a bilateral pulmonary embolism two years ago. I'm well now, but it was a close call.

Have you felt your frailty?

Acklin: My body, which had always been a good companion, even a friend, suddenly abandoned me. That impressed me. You then have to rebuild a good relationship with that companion.

How are you looking forward to your 80th birthday, Mr. Schawinski? Are you familiar with what Mr. Acklin describes?

Roger Schawinski: Age is a vague term. Everyone gets older, but what changes varies from person to person. I've been able to retain most of my previous abilities to a certain extent. I was shocked when I heard that cardinals over 80 are no longer allowed to vote for the pope because they are apparently no longer capable of making decisions. There's an external limit to when someone is considered old. I reject that approach. Our generation has already done everything differently than the generation before it. So that will probably continue to be the case in the next decade.

What difference does it make whether you live to be 60 or 80?

Acklin: At 60, I said I'd heard the gong of old age. Now it's no longer the gong; now I'm in the thick of it. I have a fundamental optimism, a great faith in life. This is now being tested. Your faith is being tested, and you have to be careful not to give up. Many people our age give up, become bitter, and perceive life as a burden. You're suddenly perceived as older. That's the problem: Even if you feel fit and vibrant, you no longer look that way to others.

Schawinski: We 1945ers are the very first age group of the generation later called Baby Boomers. We created our own world. Having been in the public eye for many years, I've always felt a certain responsibility to serve as a role model for my generation by staying fit—mentally, physically, emotionally, and socially—even as I age. Hopefully, this will encourage other people who may not have been so fortunate with their genes or life circumstances. You can't just put us in the closet as old white men, like this completely damned identity movement has tried to do.

This label seems to be bothering you; it's not the first time you've been upset about it. Hasn't this label lost some of its power?

Schawinski: It's not over yet. People are no longer viewed as individuals; instead, they are categorized based on their gender, origin, or skin color, as is familiar from totalitarian states. For the Nazis, it was the Jews; for the Bolsheviks, it was the kulaks. It felt like we'd put that behind us, but now it's suddenly resurfaced under the banner of cancel culture, postcolonialism, diversity, and #MeToo. That annoys me.

How is that for you, Mr. Acklin?

Acklin: I'm indifferent. I don't feel affected. But it's obviously a completely discriminatory term. The men I see in my practice as a psychoanalyst are rarely creepy, heroic men; instead, I see desperate old people who want to survive somehow and who are terrified that they might become demented or that something else terrible might happen to them.

You've known each other for a long time. How did you become friends?

Schawinski: Jürg caught my attention as an interesting man, both a psychoanalyst and a writer. When one of his novels was published, I invited him to my talk show "Doppelpunkt."

Acklin: The reason was my novel "Tangopaar." I was very nervous. Before the show, I met with the author and journalist Dieter Bachmann and told him I was going to Schawinski. And he said, "You have to be careful, he's so hard on the questions." It's like you're being pushed against the wall. But everything turned out well. Roger and I discovered that we both like the actress Jean Moreau and that we drive the same car, a Lancia. That broke the spell.

When was that?

Acklin: That was in 1994, over thirty years ago. But you didn't like my next novel, "Frog Song." It was about two old people who are dying and fighting like crazy against it.

Schawinski: I found it a bit whiny and negative. At that time, I was taking a completely different approach. At 55, I wrote a book, "Lust for Life until 100." That was when I first started thinking about aging, before it became trendy under the term "longevity." Now, 25 years later, we're both still relatively lively.

Acklin: My protagonists didn't simply perish, but rather fought against the demands of old age. In a way, just like us. Now we're affected ourselves.

What distinguishes you from your fathers' generation when they were the age you are now?

Schawinski: The image of my father at 80 is that of an old man. At that age, people no longer traveled extensively and weren't involved in a vibrant social environment. Doors were constantly closing. But we still have the opportunity to open new doors, and we do so without feeling like we're staggering toward the end.

Acklin: Ten or fifteen years ago, when we were talking about getting older, you said it was now just about rolling out. Looking at everything you've done since then, there's no question of rolling out.

And you?

Acklin: For me, it's two-sided. I have a much younger wife and a 21-year-old son. When I'm discussing things with him, and we're having heated discussions, I'm still on the highway. But when I'm alone and reading, which I do extensively every day, I notice that I've become more sensitive, more irritable. Instead of taking the highway, I'm now more often on the dirt road.

What does this dirt road look like?

Acklin: There's a stronger contemplation. I'm more introspective, more in the past. Luckily, my son always says, "You'll soon be like an old man on a tram." That brings me back to the present. I find the image very beautiful, Roger, of your parents' doors slowly closing. It's the same for you and me. But we can still resist it a bit better. The doors creak a little sometimes, but you can still open them.

Nevertheless, you can hear a melancholy in your voice.

Acklin: What I'm trying to say is that it's nice to still be out and about with so much energy and water displacement, for example, when you have to walk through the crowd at the train station. But it's also about not becoming bitter about the losses you suffer. They're there. But our generation isn't used to that. We designed, made progress, studied, and got a job straight away; it didn't matter what we studied. We're not used to dismantling, or rolling out. We have to dismantle, or let's call it deconstruction. How do we do that without resigning ourselves?

Do you have an answer?

Acklin: As I've gotten older, I've become somewhat more disillusioned, but not resigned. Some of my illusions have been taken away from me, including political ones. I'm more realistic than I was as a young man, and in a good way.

Schawinski: I always felt like I belonged to the luckiest generation in human history, living in the best country in the world. We thought it would always be this way. For several years now, we've known that this isn't the case; that the world has been different since February 24, 2022, and October 7, 2023, but also because of Donald Trump's re-election. The question is what role we can still play in this world.

Are you afraid of no longer being assigned a role, of no longer being needed?

Schawinski: Philipp Roth didn't just say that old age is a massacre. He also described how he, or one of his novel heroes, had become invisible. When he walked along Venice Beach in Los Angeles, people no longer saw him. What women experience at a much earlier age is also experienced by older men, even by famous men like Philip Roth. I'm aware that the same thing will happen to me. I say that without bitterness.

Acklin: We still have an important task. I, too, began to doubt whether the Enlightenment would continue, given what was happening in the world. Max Frisch once put it that way. But I need hope for myself that it will continue, and for my children and grandchildren as well. I see it as our task to give them confidence. The future of young people should not be blocked by being told that the world is doomed.

Schawinski: Nevertheless, it could be more difficult for my children and grandchildren than it was for us lucky ones.

Looking back, one romanticizes many things. You were both born in difficult times, too. The year you were born, 1945, was the year World War II ended. How did that shape you?

Acklin: World War II is still in the background. I traveled to Germany and Holland with my parents in 1949, and I can still see the cripples. That left a lasting impression on me. I recognize the current difficulties we have to deal with, but it's no use falling into dystopian thinking. That's cheap. If we inflate the dystopia, there's a danger that people we don't want to be governed by will benefit from it.

Schawinski: The generation before us still has the Second World War in their minds, even if they were toddlers during the war. It's different for us. I'll put it lightly: Those who came before us could never dance rock 'n' roll later on. We could.

Acklin: What do you mean?

Schawinski: The generation before us still carries the weight of the war with them. We, on the other hand, felt like we could experience anything. I recently saw the film "Like a Complete Unknown" about Bob Dylan. The song "The Times They Are A-Changin'" brought tears to my eyes. When we heard that music back then, we thought: Everything will be better now. We can finally leave the stuffiness of the last thousand years behind us. And a lot of things did get better.

Acklin: As far as I'm concerned, the Second World War is still in my bones. Even if you didn't actually hear it, you can still hear the jubilation of liberation.

Schawinski: This period has had a profound impact on my life in that it was due to a coincidence. Fortunately, my grandparents came to Switzerland shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, escaping anti-Semitism and poverty in Poland. My father was born in Chur in 1916. My immediate family survived the Nazi era in Switzerland. Had the family moved on to another country, my father would probably have become a victim of the Holocaust, and I would never have been born.

You're both still working at 80. One could accuse you of not wanting to clear the way for younger people. Can't you let go?

Schawinski: I know such comments, and they're often motivated by envy. Yet, as an older person, you also share your experiences and can be a mentor. Many of my former colleagues often remind me of certain phrases I passed on to them, which I've long since forgotten. Besides, you also keep working for yourself—because it's good for you. My father always said: Never stop working.

Acklin: I work much less as a psychoanalyst than I used to, and I'm also writing what will probably be my last novel. I feel the same way as you, Roger: I need it. Age, that is, maturity and experience, can be an advantage. When my older patients beat themselves up and allow themselves to be cornered because they supposedly no longer fit socially, I help them deal with this situation better. Because I'm older myself, I understand them.

Schawinski: That's why I'm bothered by the rule that people are automatically sent into retirement at 65 everywhere these days, even though life expectancy is constantly increasing. Back in the 1880s, Bismarck was the first to establish a pension plan—and only from age 70 onward. Back then, life expectancy was 44; today it's well over 80. Something has to change, also due to demographic trends. People over 65 can still make a contribution to themselves and society in many places. The stubborn insistence on enforcing the 65-year rule is completely wrong.

Acklin: If I were a roofer, I wouldn't want to work until I was 70.

Schawinski: I don't mean them either. But 70 percent of people today work in an office or in the service sector, not in agriculture or factories. The retirement age should be raised for them.

What if you notice that you are mentally deteriorating and, like Joe Biden, suddenly start mixing up names or no longer recognize a familiar face, in his case George Clooney?

Schawinski: I've set a limit for myself. If I can no longer recall names or dates in interviews, I stop. Biden clearly didn't do that. And he also had a much greater responsibility. He was no longer active after 6 p.m. I often work until 1 a.m.

Acklin: Biden is an absolutely tragic figure. Whenever I see him, I just feel sorry for him. You, Roger, are a Formula 1 driver, and you drive a Formula 1 car. As long as you still have that, you don't need to keep it propped up in the basement and idling at full throttle all the time. Otherwise, your wife will go crazy, and you'll get nowhere. You'd better keep racing.

That should do you some good, Mr. Schawinski.

Schawinski: That's nice of you, but it doesn't change my point. If fewer and fewer people work and are responsible for the pensions of more and more people, it won't work in the long run. Everyone sees that, but nothing is being done. Denmark is now setting the retirement age at 70. That's apparently not possible in Switzerland.

A man is currently turning the world upside down, or rather, he's shocking the world. He's only a year younger than both of you: Donald Trump. Trump, too, has incredible vitality and energy. Would you grant him that?

Schawinski: Trump certainly has good genes. He doesn't drink alcohol because his brother died from his alcoholism. But Trump also has his moments. His speeches continue to deteriorate, his vocabulary continually shrinks. He just covers up one calamity with another in a flash. He blasts everything with a cascade of shocking statements. That's how he gets away with it. It's impossible to keep up with all of it, all the nonsense and lies. I fear that those around him will cover for him as long as possible if his moments continue to worsen.

Acklin: Trump is brilliant at denial. He's constantly on a rush of adrenaline, even more so than you.

Schawinski: Me?

Acklin: I mean, regarding his public appearance. But if you look at him closely, he suddenly looks older. He's a young man of 78.

Schawinski: 79 next week!

Acklin: Joe Biden also seemed vibrant at the beginning, and then suddenly he fell apart. Trump will also struggle more at some point, both physically and cognitively. His technique is still to steamroll everything. Yet his speeches are actually less coherent and often illogical.

Jill Biden protected her husband for political reasons and contributed to the taboo surrounding his health. Would your wives tell you when enough is enough and you should step back?

Schawinski: Yes. Gabriella is my harshest critic.

Acklin: Even my son would do that. He's tough and wouldn't let me walk into a trap. Neither would my daughters, my wife, or my brother, I hope. But I often say: I'll cheat as long as I can, until I actually get demented. That works well for quite a long time. But as I said: At some point, it's no longer a maneuver, but a real emergency. People don't just die, they get demented. They have to watch their own selves disintegrate.

It starts at 40 that you can't remember names straight away. That must happen to you more often than before.

Schawinski: During my live broadcasts, I know I have to deliver in the moment, not the next morning. It's a kind of brain training. As soon as the TV camera is rolling or the microphone is on, I enter a higher level of concentration. I can't slip into a situation where I start stuttering. That's bound to happen at some point. That's the definitive sign for me to switch off.

Acklin: Sometimes I can't remember a word, but it usually comes back. This plays a lesser role for me because I don't have to work on the radio. When you become more forgetful, you have to deal with it somehow.

Schawinski: I was recently invited to Swiss television's "Samschtig-Jass" (Same Day Jass). I haven't played jass in 60 years; the last time was in military training. I was afraid of embarrassing myself in front of the other professional jass players I didn't know. And then I became Jass King! That made me happier than I had been in a long time. Among the many honors I've received, it's a truly special one—brilliant. Even at our age, with a bit of luck, you can still achieve peak mental performance.

Acklin: Good to hear, but I still have one objection. You should know when you belong in the Stöckli—take more time to reflect and look inward more often.

You're a public figure who's still in demand. Don't you stop because you're afraid of disappearing?

Acklin: There's something to that. Not being able to stop can also be a defense against fear. You don't want to let go, so you don't hear the doors suddenly closing. As long as you go in at full speed, the doors will still slam open. So the fear of becoming meaningless, of disappearing, and ultimately extinguishing definitely plays a role when you can't let go.

If you were to cut back, that would mean that daily calls and inquiries would dry up. Surely that's not such a simple idea?

Schawinski: I've experienced that before. When I was head of Sat1 in Berlin, I had three invitations to parties and events every evening, and when I left the job, I didn't get a single one. That didn't hurt me; I knew how it worked. It was helpful preparation for later insignificance. I'm fighting again just for Radio Grischa.

With your new radio station, you want to break the radio monopoly in the canton of Graubünden. Because you allegedly failed to meet certain conditions, your license was revoked.

Schawinski: I'm giving it my all for this project once again, just like when I broke the radio and then the television monopoly. Now I want to break this ugly Graubünden media monopoly in the former homeland of my father and my family. People tell me: "You need this, to fight."

It invigorates you.

Schawinski: I don't need it, but if it's necessary, I won't cower; I'll fight. Even if you only see a 1 percent chance of things turning out well, you have to find that 1 percent, and maybe it will work. That's my stance, and I hope so in this case, too, where I feel unfairly treated by forces I can't categorize.

Have you ever undergone psychoanalysis?

Schawinski: I tried two or three times, but it didn't really work out, with any therapist. I was probably the problem. Seriously, I tried because my wife said she could distinguish between people who were in therapy and those who weren't. I'm not in therapy now, but I feel like I don't need it. I was a beloved child. That's my luck. I didn't have to go through all those terrible injuries that are churned over and over again in psychotherapy.

What would the psychoanalyst say about this?

Acklin: I'd say he doesn't need psychoanalysis; he should just do his shows. That's the best therapy for him.

You, Mr. Schawinski, became a father again when you were over 50, and you, Mr. Acklin, when you were 60. The children will lose their fathers as young adults. Do you talk about it at home?

Schawinski: Our daughter Lea thinks it's terrible that she has such an old father. She's 27. So for me, it's a double responsibility to stay fit and alert for as long as possible so she doesn't have to experience the impending loss so early.

Acklin: My son used to be impressed when someone my age died. Now we have such a good dialogue that we can even talk about it with a wink. Or he'll say, more as an encouragement: "Look, Eric Clapton, he's your age and he's still got it."

Do you read the obituaries in the newspaper?

Schawinski: Especially the years someone was born. Today, out of four or five, about three were in our age group. That got me thinking.

Acklin: I feel the same way. I see the birth year, 1928, and think: not bad. But then 1947, I don't like that at all. You're serious when you read that, and at the same time you react to it with humor, like we are now.

Schawinski: But there are many people who die very old today, and when you consider that they belonged to an earlier generation, they perhaps didn't eat as well as we do, didn't do as much sport...

Acklin: . . . and still turned 100 . . .!

Schawinski: . . . that creates an expectation. But I don't necessarily want to live as long as possible, only if it's connected to a zest for life.

How would you like to go?

Schawinski: We talked about letting go. At some point, you have to let go completely. I hope I can accept that with serenity. The decisive moment is the hour of death. How do you behave then? Can you give your loved ones a blessing? Or do you leave bitter? You can't practice that. The great Swiss death researcher Elisabeth Kübler-Ross accompanied thousands of people to their deaths, but she herself couldn't let go.

Some people say they don't want to be cheated out of dying, so they want to go consciously rather than die from a heart attack or in a car accident. What about you?

Acklin: I hope I experience a natural death. Unless I'm in extreme pain. To put it bluntly, I don't want to die. One can die with dignity. Sometimes I lie awake in bed in the morning, on my back, with my hands folded on my chest, and think: That's what my father looked like when he was dead. Both my father and my mother died well. They were extinguished at the end. For me, they are role models in this respect.

Schawinski: At some point, my mother said, "I've had everything, I can die." I was with her in her final hours, and she said, "You were always my playboy." I'd never heard her use that expression before. And she said to my wife, Gabriella, "You are my darling." Then she gave us her blessing and died. I thought that was wonderful. If I can do that, too, then I'll have accomplished the most important thing in life.

Acklin: My mother was just as generous a person; she gave me the basic trust and stability I spoke about. Right now, I'm thinking: I come from my mother, maybe I'll go back there.

Schawinski: You have to be at peace with yourself. You are at peace when you know: I've lived an honest life. I believe in karma.

What do you regret?

Acklin: I didn't miss anything that was incredibly important to me.

Schawinski: On the contrary. I've achieved much more than I ever could have hoped for, and I'm amazed when I look back at everything that's happened.

Anything else would surprise you.

Schawinski: That's true. I have no reason to regret taking the wrong turn.

How did you celebrate your 80th birthday, Mr. Acklin?

Acklin: I threw a big party for my 70th birthday. This time I invited only my wife, my children, their partners, and my grandchildren to dinner. There was something reconciliatory about it.

And you, Mr. Schawinski, how will you celebrate?

Schawinski: I didn't know whether to ignore my birthday or celebrate it. I decided to do it like I always do: with lots of invited guests, as many as the venue I rented could accommodate. I hope to repeat this in ten years and will invite all the guests to my 90th birthday party now.

They simply enjoy standing in the sun.

Schawinski: Wrong, that's not what I'm talking about at all. It's simply not time yet to resign and say, "It's over." I never say, "I'm old." I'm older. Old age isn't just around the corner.

When does this start?

Schawinski: I don't know. But as long as I don't feel like I'm an old man, or that people don't see me as an old man, I don't use the word "old."

And then, does life after death await you? Are you religious?

Schawinski: It's more of a spirituality that I've been exploring for several years. At Esalen, the Mecca of the New Age movement in California at the time, I experienced that there's more than what we experience day after day, other dimensions of reality. I don't have to meditate every day. But it's good to know that the sea of ​​information we drift through day after day isn't the whole world. There are other things, and that calms me.

Acklin: I'm not religious. But I believe in life. In that sense, death plays a big role because it means the end of life. But I don't know what it's like afterward. I hope nothing awaits me there.

Could something beautiful like paradise await you?

Acklin: Nothing would be good enough.

Jürg Acklin is a writer and psychoanalyst with his own practice in Zurich. He has written numerous novels, including "Das Tangopaar," "Der Vater," and "Trust is Good." Roger Schawinski founded the first private radio station and the first private local television station in Switzerland. He is the managing director of Radio 1 and the author of several nonfiction books. Both men are married for the third time and each have three children.