There are going to be those of you who will say that the title of this blog is preposterous. A few years ago, I would have called “Bullshit.” Funny how aging changes ones perspective. I asked four friends all over the age of 70 what they thought about my proposition. They all nodded sagely and said that they agreed 100 percent. I then went to my spouse Karen who as a Home Care nurse spent many years working with the elderly. I expected her to deny my proposition. I was quite surprised when she also agreed. I asked her why. She explained as follows:
“I spent forty years working as a home health care nurse. Most of my patients were elderly. I think I helped many of them lead better lives. However, when I look back, I can see that I did not really understand what they were going through with the aging process. I only realized it when I had to go through it myself.”
In January of this year, I decided to stop running the mountain trails that I had been running four or five times a week for the past 12 years. I had fallen many times and six months earlier I had a fall and broke my finger. I still ran for the next six months but suddenly I could just not bring myself to go up the mountains running anymore. I experienced both pain and pleasure with this decision. In some ways, it felt like a big weight had been lifted off my shoulders. On the other hand, I missed the challenge and excitement of running rocky mountain trails. I decided to stick to the flatlands and less rugged running trails.
I mentioned this to some running friends of mine. One of the younger ones asked me what I had done to prevent falling or to somehow adjust my attitude so that I could continue running. I explained that over the years I had started running with knee pads, elbow pads, shatterproof glasses, and hand guards like roller bladers used. I had the best trail running shoes that I could afford. He asked if I would be willing to look for some new ideas so that I could return to the mountain trails. I told him that I appreciated the offer but that I was finished with running rocky mountain trails.
Upon reflection, I realized that his attitude was like what many of us elderly experience from a wide range of sources. From doctors to other “expert” advice givers, younger people assume that much of what afflicts the elderly is simply a state of mind. How often have you heard any of the following”
- You are only as old as you think you are.
- Aging is an attitude.
- Age is just a number. Life and aging are the greatest gifts that we could possibly ever have.
- Aging is just another word for living.
- Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.
- As soon as you feel too old to do a thing, DO IT.
- Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years.
The above quotes may be inspiring. They may be motivating. They may sound profound. However, there is an element of denial in each of them. A little like the quote “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Something missing is the element of empathy. We may not all be tough. We may have lived a wonderful and useful life. However, like a beautiful flower we all reach the end of our journey in this world. Many of us may reach this end without ever really knowing “What kind of a person we should have been.” We may be too sick, too fragile or simply too old to “Just do it.”
We are told that we can stave off aging by yoga, senior fit exercises, strength exercises, cardio exercises, good diet, and nutrition. We should give up smoking, overeating, and drinking. All these suggestions are useful to some extent. However, none of them will stop the aging process. Aging is a process by which the body gradually loses its energy. The cycle of life is birth, growth, and decline. No species of animal or plant that ever graced this earth has escaped this cycle. For some of us the cycle is shorter than for others. Inspiring motivational quotes will not help you to avoid this cycle. Nor will the many over the counter remedies for aging. I did find this advertisement for five ways to look younger which exemplifies what my message here is. I am dubious of the “modern solutions” that they suggest to combat aging.
“With the right solutions and strategies, we can lessen these signs (of aging) and stay looking our youthful best for longer. Here, we’ll explore five key challenges men face as they age and the modern solutions available to help combat them. — 5 Things That Make Men Look Old And What You Can Do To Look 10 Years Younger
Aging is not combat. There is a reconciliation that must inevitably come for all of us. I once thought this was something to be avoided. I now realize that only by embracing the inevitable can we live our last years on this earth with a sublime equanimity that would make Buddha proud. We are going to age. We are going to decline. We will eventually succumb to death. We can live our life to the fullest with a paradox that we must accept. The paradox is that we should never give up, but we should also be prepared to let go. The two processes are never black and white. We need to hold on as long as we can, but we also need to gradually let go. Life has always been a trial of balancing complex and competing priorities. Aging presents us with one last trial. You can go raging into the night if you like, but I would prefer to walk steadily towards whatever awaits me after this life is over.
For some very poignant and moving pictures about aging, I have found none better than those by Tom Hussey. The following link will take you to some of his pictures. They will touch your heart.
Our Founding Fathers wrote a Big Lie and African Americans have been paying for it ever since. Women and other minorities were not even mentioned in the Big Lie, but it applied to them as well. Lies can be committed because people believe things that do not mesh with reality. Lies are a coverup for many government actions that our politicians do not see as palatable for the public. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, the overthrow of Salvador Allende, the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are only a few of the lies that have been fed to the American people. Of course, our politicians would have us believe it is for our own good. The really sad part is that the media is always complicit in these lies by reporting them with little or no verification of their truthfulness. Some of these lies fall into what I call the “Realm of Taboos.” Taboos are a good place to look for Big Lies.
So, we tell a Big Lie that age does not matter. And we have no one willing to challenge that lie. However, it is not only physical aging that puts people at a disadvantage, but mental aging as well. Many older people are stuck in a past generation of ideas and values that are no longer relevant today. Values and cultures change over time and people born in the 40’s and 50’s are less likely to understand and adapt to the changes that daily life brings. If you can only see the “Good Old Days”, you may be suffering from old age. The average age of Nobel Prize winners when they conducted their prize-winning research is 44.1 years. As for writing, “According to experts, we start becoming more creative and prolific in whatever field of art or study we work, around the age of 25. Most people reach their peak after the age of 35 or in their 40s. This is when they produce their most valuable work. After the age of 45, most artists’ prolificity starts slowly declining.” — 
Love is a word used in many semantic constructions. People associate love with sex, marriage, partnership, and other types of relationships between human beings. It is also common for the word love to be associated with inanimate objects and other animals. For instance, people say “I love my car” or “I love my dog.” These uses of the word trivialize the meaning of love. Romantic novels (think Romeo and Juliet) portray love as undying or “dying” passion but seldom show the hard work required to keep love burning. TV and movies feature continuous images of love based more on lust rather than what real love is. Even Jesus the greatest prophet of love did not get the idea of love right.
Jesus gave one example of “true love” but missed the most significant example in his life. Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” — John 15:13. Many soldiers have given up their lives to save others in the course of war. Often these soldiers were friends with the men they died for. However, to say that they loved them is quite off the mark. A number of years ago, I dove into a river to save a guy who was being dragged down the St. Croix River by its current. He did not know how to get out of the current and was fighting it instead of going with it. I swam out and brought him to shore. He was very grateful. I risked my life for this man. I did not know this man and I certainly did not love him. Many acts of heroism have been done by people out of a sense of responsibility or compassion, but I would not call these “acts of love.”
I propose that the greatest acts of love are to stand by someone when the world is bent on destroying them and you risk being destroyed along with them. The love of a mother for a son convicted of a heinous crime is one of these acts. Jesus’s mother Mary stood by the cross and watched her son die, never deserting his side. I am sure she suffered insults and criticisms and was blamed for his behavior. A mother who will feel love for her son or daughter no matter how grievous the crimes they have done is committing an act of love.
A few months ago, the news carried a story about a young man who had been in and out of trouble. He went into a dinner with a gun, robbed several patrons and was shot in the back as he was leaving. No charges were brought on the shooter. As it turned out the gun that he used in the robbery was a water pistol. The mother was questioned as to her thoughts. She did not attack her son’s killer, nor did she defend her son’s behavior. She did wonder if he really needed to be shot in the back as he was leaving. I was struck by the mother’s sadness and love for her son. It did not matter that he was a bad kid or that the whole of the media was gleeful about his being shot in the act; his mom’s (like Mary’s) love remained firm.
One of the most common tropes in movies and shows concern what I call the “Two Ships Passing in the Night Love Model.” Individuals who seem to resonate with each other go about their daily business and never tell the other person how they feel. This has been a part of so many shows that I have watched that I am losing count. You sit there and wonder episode after episode if they will ever say anything before it is too late. It is frustrating as you want them to get together and say, “I love you.”
I thought about this problem for a while. Many would say it was just a writer’s trick to get you to keep coming back for the next episode. You get hooked on whether or not they will ever consummate their love either physically or emotionally. It is a rather good hook but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was really art mimicking life. I have been guilty of the same behavior and many people I know have also been guilty of the same behavior. We fail to say I love you when it counts the most. We can say that we love our new shoes or that we love our cat easily enough, but we have a hard time telling friends and relatives that we love them. We often abbreviate the sentiment with “Love you” or we use the term generically. “See you later folks, love all of you.” The simple act of looking someone in the eyes and saying “I love you” is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks that many of us face.
But what is true love anyway? Is loving a person in the same ballpark as loving your dog or your new shoes? Would you give up your life for your cat or your shoes? There are many elements that are part of true Love. A life without true love is rather sad but more common than many people realize. How many people do you know who took marriage vows only to divorce within ten years or less? How many of these people were willing to go to a marriage counselor before they divorced? How many of them just gave up on the other person before giving them a chance to change or giving themselves a chance to change? My elements of true love include:
I think of the places I have been. Their memories come randomly. Sometimes I remember being 16 at the New York Worlds Fair in 1964. Roaming around by myself with no particular agenda. The Vatican Pieta exhibit really made an impression on me. Then it was my year in Biloxi, Mississippi. Scuba diving off Ship Island whenever I could get a break from my Air Force duties. Unalakleet, Alaska where I spent a year on a remote mountain top off the Bering Sea. Dating Eskimos and Indians who were the first women I ever really cared about. After leaving Alaska for Wisconsin, I developed a whole new family to start life with as a responsible father and husband.
There are many lists of “places” to see but much fewer lists of great events to see. Events are harder to find. Some occur every year like the Newport Jazz Festival and others are one off events like the Woodstock Music Festival. We frequently do not find out about events until they are over. In our travels, Karen and I have discovered posters of local events. Generally, they are not within our travel dates, or they have already occurred. Sometimes though we have been lucky enough to “trip” over an event and attend it. On occasion, it has been through the advice of local people who have told us about the event.
In one of my blogs, I noted the distinction between being a tourist and being a pilgrim. One definition of a tourist is “A person visiting a place for pleasure.” My definition of a pilgrim is non-religious. You do not have to be on a sacred mission to be a pilgrim. I propose the idea of a pilgrim as someone who takes part in the cultures they are visiting. Someone who is not looking in from the outside like at a visitor to a Hawaiian Luau but someone who joins the celebrants. They say there are three types of people. Those who do not know that there is a parade. Those who watch the parade. Those who are in the parade. Tourists are watchers. Pilgrims are in the parade. In many of our travels, Karen and I have managed to “be in the parade” at least for a short while.
We have so many memories of friends met during travels. Friends such as Alex and Heidi in Cervelló, Spain enriched our lives and made our trip to Spain more than memorable. Xibo and Mary were friends we met on our Chinese trip in 1989. They accompanied us on several adventures in China. Years later, we helped them to emigrate to the USA. They now live in San Francisco with their daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren. In Seoul, we attended a birthday party for our grandson Sam after our adopted Korean daughter Susan found her birth mother. A year after Sam was born, we traveled back with Susan to Korea for the celebration of his one-year birthday with Susan and her birth family.
A “Last Man Standing Bottle” includes some of the most interesting people I ever met in Frederic, Wisconsin. We would gather every weekday in the town library to discuss books, politics, guns, cars, ideology, and any other ideas brought up. We agreed 10 years ago to create this iconic “Bottle” for our coffee group. Since putting the Old Granddad Bourbon in a beautiful case with a pendant that had our names on it, four of our members have passed away. The group disbanded with the advent of Covid and was never resurrected. The bottle now sits in a case at the Frederic Train Museum along with many other relics from Frederic. I am 76 years old and the youngest of the three remaining bottle members. The shadows of Dick, Jerry, Brian, and Ken periodically go through my mind. I remember each of them so vividly in respect to ideas, but their physical aspects are just lingering shadows who periodically are guests of my thoughts.
When we are born, we are compared to growth charts and Gesell Developmental schedules. for our development. Lag behind and your parents will be worried. As we grow up, we get compared to sisters, brothers, cousins, and others. Who has not heard the comment “You are just like your father,” or “your sister had straight A’s when she was your age.” In school, we will be tested from kindergarten through college on a variety of measures designed to see how we stack up. Each state will routinely rate the children in a school district or region to compare to other children in the country. Children and schools are then ranked and rated from best to worst. Everyone with any eyes and a brain knows that the school districts with the most money will almost always have the highest rated schools.
About fifteen years ago, I wanted to test out a hypothesis. Forbes Magazine each year publishes its list of 200 richest people in the world. It gives a great deal of information about each person such as schooling and net worth. I wanted to test whether or not a college degree made a difference in net worth. I added up the overall net worth of all college graduates and compared it to the overall net worth of all those who did not complete college. About fifty five percent of the Forbes richest people had either a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree. The remaining forty five percent either did not enter college or did not finish college. Who do you think earned more money? Imagine my surprise to find that the average net worth of non-college degreed rich people was 3.5 billion dollars compared to 2.5 billion dollars for degreed people. All the hype on college degrees may just help make colleges richer.
In the next few weeks, I want to add four other searches to Dr. Frankl’s search. I believe that these are equally important to most of us. In fact, I might argue that to the average person, some of these other searches will dictate most of their lives. A particular search might take precedence over all others and drive how the person behaves, what goals they have and how they organize the daily activities of their lives.
When you adopt the Packers, you become a member of the Green Bay Packer Fan Club. Being accepted gives you a new identity. You are a Packer Backer, a Cheese Head. Being accepted means you now represent something great. You are part of one of the best football teams of all time. You can put your Packer shirt on proudly and everywhere you go in Wisconsin, you will be admired. You are no longer just Jane Doe.
The first question anyone must answer is what do they expect to get out of the group? What kind of acceptance are you looking for? To borrow from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I think we must ask what need we are trying to fulfil by joining this group. Are we hoping to get an acceptance that will meet our needs for basic survival, our need for security, our need for love and friendship, our need for self-esteem or our need for self-development. Many groups yield benefits in all these areas once a person is accepted into the group. However, I think it is very important to be clear from the start what you expect to get by joining any group. This first question is a prelude to the second question.
What will gaining acceptance into this group cost me? The line from Matthew, 16:26 reminds us that, “What doth it profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffer the loss of his own soul?” Every human endeavor or activity comes with some cost. In business terms, we use a Cost Benefit Analysis to determine if the benefits will justify the costs. In terms of acceptance there may be costs beyond money to joining any group or club. You may find social and emotional costs attached to a membership. Will the benefits of acceptance by this group justify these costs? Do you have to sell your soul to the devil to get the benefits? The Mafia makes members take an oath never to “rat” on anyone regardless of what they have done. Many organizations have rules and codes which put the good of the group ahead of the good of society. Partisanship in politics is another example of where loyalty to a party soon negates the very reason that many people went into politics. Good intentions often go down the drain when a person is faced with losing acceptance in their identity group.
