The author, clinical psychologist and philosopher, deals with three questions which are most pressing at old age for giving the framework of suffering and disease as well as being a common part of existential feelings in health old people. The examples illustrating these opinions include biography and opinions of the philosopher Nietzsche (1844 - 1900), who suffered from syphilis and psychosis and expressed these opinions in a genial way in his poetic-philosophic work „So Said Zarathustra“. Nietzsche, as well as other two subjects of the assay, Imanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) and F. M. Dostojevsky (1821 - 1881) looked for answers to questions which they had to accept in spite of their refusal (also T. G. Masaryk felt lonely at this high age). The author question the Kant‘s categorical imperative as an effort of people to adapt to the average. The specifi cally documented circumstances include progressing dementia in Kant, shown in his correspondence, solitude and suffering of Dostojevsky, who was affected by epilepsy of GM type and projected his conditions to heroes of his novels. The authors warns against a false sympathy, which the patients usually disclose and, after 30 years of practice, raises a question whether professionals are adequately prepared to answer these questions. The pity may be intrusive and extortionary and the author is of the opinion that the slogan of the International Year of Seniors 1999: the World Belongs to All Generations should be exercised in practice.

        Key words: seniority, pain, suffering, solitude, Kant I., Dostojevsky F. M., Nietzsche F.