Aging Capriciously

Today among all the other good things you have to celebrate, most of all of course the people that gave their lives to protect our freedom and way of life, I want to remind you all to be grateful that the world will not end in December. By now, I am sure that most of you know the world was scheduled to end (according to the Mayan Calendar) on December 21^st, 2012.  However, Good News!   Recent research has uncovered hidden data in the Mayan files that shows the original estimate is wrong.  Without too much ado as to the exact evidence, it is now conclusive.  We have about another 4000 years to go until the earth ends. 

So, please go about your picnics, ball games, cemetery visits and customary day off with a lightened heart.  You will not have to share the graveyard with the brave soldiers and warriors that went before you anytime in the near future. Of course, whatever wild and crazy activities that you undertake may have a deleterious effect on your longevity, but you participate in these at your own volition.  Many of our fallen soldiers did not really have the choice.  Sports risk is a great deal different than the risk of serving your country during wartime. The rest of us (at least those not serving in a current war) can stay out of harms way and be around for many more holidays.  In fact, if the new evidence on the Mayan calendar is correct, we have 56,000 more holidays to go before the end of the world. That is a lot of hot dogs and brats.

Many of our soldiers are not sitting over a grill today eating burgers and drinking beer. At this very moment, they are going about their duties looking over their shoulders for a sniper and wondering if the young child they see coming towards them has a bomb strapped to their person. The football hero may get a bad hit but it is in the rules of the game and he will pick up a hefty paycheck at the end of the week.  A large number of service people will come back with missing arms and legs. They will face enormous medical bills that they cannot pay and may have little chance of any future earnings.  So today, be glad that you have many more years on this earth, but do indeed pay tribute and respect for those who have  gone before you and also to those who are still serving and protecting.  

 

Who do you celebrate today for helping to support democracy and freedom in the world?  Have you ever thanked a veteran or a service man or woman  for helping to keep you safe and able to live in the greatest country on earth?  Do you do what you can to help our country remain true to the ideas of the founding fathers? Do you vote and participate in the democratic process that is your privilege and your responsibility? Do you sit idly on the sidelines watching the football games or do you pay attention to the politics governing our country and the backgrounds of the people running for elected office?  Do you know as much about your elected officials and you do your paid State Quarterback? 

How much is your time worth?  This is a question often considered by some and seldom considered by many. As we get older, time becomes more precious since it becomes in shorter and shorter supply.  Like everything else in life, time also adheres to the law of supply and demand.  When you start off your life, you have more time to spend that when you turn eighty.  Thank about the last day of your life.  How much money would you give to have one more day to live?  How much of your wealth would you be willing to pay for one more day of life?  

We value our time differently depending on who asks for it and what it is going to be used for.  Some people like to fix things themselves to save money.  Others would just as soon pay someone to do it and then use their time to do what they do best or enjoy more.  The average American spends nearly three hours a day watching TV or movies.  How much of this time is wasted?  Perhaps, it all depends on the perspective of the person.

 I often declare that the present value of my time is 50 dollars per hour.  If I were richer or poorer, this rate would vary proportionally.  I set my “rate” as a means of considering where I might best spend my effort.  Although, my full time consulting rate is considerably higher, this figure gives me some kind of a baseline to evaluate activities against.  I live to think that I take into consideration the fact that I cannot bill 24/7.  Thus, I might decide that it makes more sense to mow my lawn, wash my car or do an oil change then have someone else do it for me.  This is based in part not just on the cost of the service but also the time I would have to spend arranging the service. I have put in a bid on a contract this Monday and 50 dollars was my baseline for my time multiplied by the number of hours I thought it would take to do the job.  This was a minimum bid and for less, it would not have been worth it.  In fact, if it had not been to help a friend out at work I probably would have passed on the work.  

Some folks would argue it is foolish of me to value time that is not billed the same way as billable time, since this time would not have earned any income anyway.  Nevertheless, it helps me to decide what I really like to do and separate that from what I have to do.  I do not need a heart attack to help me prioritize my values although even a diagnosis with Prostate Cancer does help me focus more.  Many are the days that will find me riding my motorcycle when my neighbor across the street is working on his bike in the garage.  Perhaps he would rather work on his bike, but I would rather ride mine.  I can hear the refrains of the song “Live for today, La La, Live for Today.”  

How do you prioritize your time?  How do you decide what to spend your time on or who to spend it with?  Are you spending it on what really matters or are you “wasting” your time on less beneficial activities and with less beneficial people?  How much is your time worth?  

Approximately 15 men attended the Luck Men’s Discussion Group yesterday.  As I noted in my blog on Wednesday, I was the discussion host and the topic was “Is Life Fair?”  We began with some introductions of a new member who was visiting the area and then Dan the group leader turned the floor over to me.  I introduced the topic by reading the blog I wrote yesterday to the group.  I then asked the group to do a sort of Round Robin where each person takes a turn in answering the topic question. I also asked that each person maybe tell a short story or give some reasons why they thought life was either fair or not.   

I have to note as an aside that the group of men who come to these meetings is a very well educated perhaps upper or at least middle class group of Americans who (at least at this meeting) appeared to all be white older men of Northern European descent.  The fact that this might skew our perceptions on the subject did not go unnoticed by any of the men coming.  Chuck first noted the point that many minorities including Hispanics living in the Southwest and Native Americans might not feel that life was fair and that they would be coming from an entirely different perspective on this issue than we were. With that caveat, it appeared that the group opinion tended towards the “life has been mostly fair to me, but I can see a few instances in my life where it has been unfair and many where it has been unfair to others.  Some comments were:

My friend Jerry read a scripture verse on the subject of fairness, which seemed to indicate that fairness was in the eyes of the beholder. What is fair to one person might not seem fair to another.  This verse was followed up by a rather cute story told by Dick about another individual who used bible verses from Leviticus to indict immoral behavior.  This story is worth noting and I have included since though it has been around the Web for a while it is worth remembering.  This is only a partial version of the original story. It is about a letter to Dr. Laura who is an ardent anti-gay advocate. Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a US radio personality and has said that as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22 & cannot be condoned under any circumstances.  The respondent wrote as follows:

I noticed that the question and discussion started running out of steam at about the time the donuts and cookies I brought had started to disappear. Upon Jerry’s suggestion I visited the Frederic Bakery, which I might add has the best donuts in Minnesota or Wisconsin and I purchased a dozen donuts and a dozen cookies to bring to the men’s’ discussion group.  After the discussion was ended, I think I received more compliments on the donuts then I did on the discussion topic or at least as many.  I wonder what this says about life.  Maybe my next discussion topic should be “How important are donuts to the meaning of life, love and political discussion?”

Has your life been fair?  How would you answer this question? Do you think life is fair for everyone or is fairness somewhat inadequately proportioned among the earths’ people? What do you do about unfairness and injustice and bullying? Do your stand up for the rights of others? For minorities? If not what holds you back?

For those of you who read my Friday blog, I have a confession to make. It was more or less motivated or should I say precipitated by my imminent appointment with my doctor.  The previous week Dr. Nunes, the urologist I was seeing did a biopsy (should I say 12 since that is how many samples she took) on my prostate. I was coming in on Friday to get the results.  Needless to say, I was preoccupied Friday morning with thoughts or worries of a negative diagnosis. Upon meeting with Dr. Nunes, I immediately asked “were the growths benign or malignant.”  I was told that it was not that simple. She explained that “my growths were indeed cancer” (BAD NEWS!) but that they were a “Gleason 6” (WHAT THE DEVIL DID THIS MEAN?) and there was still plenty of time to make a decision on how to proceed (That’s great, like two days or twenty years?).

Dr. Nunes then explained to me THE options. After hearing them, I asked her if there were not some other options like pills, drugs, herbs or spells that could make the cancer go away,  She was sad to inform me that “modern miracle medicine” was not that “modern” or at least that miraculous yet. The real options (which I shall not bore you with) all had potential side effects, not the least of which to my mind, was impotence.  You will understand that the worries for me about impotence were not so much for my sake, as it was for Karen.  How could I leave her frustrated night after night? J 

Anyway, my choice of action has been to wait and see.  I have been gratified since making this choice five short days ago now to find out the following:

•       My potential life expectancy with surgery is still about 15 more years
•       My life expectancy may depend on how long I wait
•       I have the number one disease for men in the world
•       There is no such thing as a Gleason Stage 6
•       Prostate cancer is no big thing

So, getting back to my Friday blog, I was going to title it “Life’s Not Fair or Is It?  By sheer coincidence, that is the subject of the Men’s discussion group that I am moderating in Luck today. Every other Tuesday as many as 20 men get together in Luck, Wisconsin at the library to discuss issues ranging from Chaos theory to “Is life fair or not?” I referred to this issue in my Friday blog and somehow it seemed apropos to the meeting I was facing on Friday. Let me explain. I am a nice guy (at least nicer now then a few years ago). I pay my taxes. I kiss children. (Shame on W.C. Fields for saying that “Anyone who dislikes kids and dogs cannot be all bad.”) I love dogs!  I give to the poor and other assorted charities.  I slow my car to let old people cross the street.  I support the right or should I say left political candidates. I go to church (every other year) on Christmas and Easter.  I still work and pay taxes to help the younger generation with their social security burden for the older folks.  I am not even collecting Social Security yet.  So how could any God (assuming one exists, which I confess I do not) but if he/she did, how could she/he select me as a candidate for CANCER!  I’m one of the good guys.  I should mention that I am for gender equality, equal rights for minorities including gay marriage and if push comes to shove, I will take the Packers over the Vikings any day. 

Thus, we arrive at perhaps one of the most fundamental existential questions of all time.  Is life fair?  Many religious people, and some not so religious, link this question with their faith and hope in a just God.  I have heard it said many times “How could God let such a thing happen.” You may be familiar with the book “When bad things happen to Good People.”  If there a just God how could he or she let BAD things happen to us GOOD people?  I am marching off at 1PM today to find out what the men in the Luck discussion group think about this question. If you are an assiduous reader of my blog, you will already know what I think on this question. I am not going to contaminate anyone’s thoughts with my ideas at this time.  I will comment tomorrow more on the results from today’s discussion in Luck. For now, I will ask you to post your comments and ideas. 

The question for you today is simple: “Is life fair?”  

How much longer?  How much longer? How much longer will it take?  From the point of view of the person waiting, longer can seem forever. From the point of view of one trying to get ready, longer may seem like a very short time. We say the movie was very long, the speech was very long; the job took a long time to get done. What this means is that we were not really excited about the time we had to wait.  Long is not a very precise word, but it generally denotes a length of time that is greater than we expected or more time than we wanted to spend.  When we are bored, time seems very long indeed.

In men speak, “how much longer” might be translated as “would you please hurry up, I would like to leave now.”  In women speak; the answer might be “I still need to get ready, would you please stop rushing me.”  If men and women have different language and thought patterns, do we differ in our conceptions of time and our methods for handling time?  To some extent, there may be differences due to culture and social influences.  However, I think the concept of long is more related to expectations and where expectations differ by culture then long will have a different meaning regardless of gender. 

I was once told that Asians think in centuries, Europeans think in decades and Americans think in weeks. If you don’t agree about this, think of how obsessed American business is with the quarterly report and end of month figures, not to mention the daily stock market prices. Americans are very pragmatic, but we typically have a very short time horizon. Our conception of long is very short compared to other cultures.  Hence, we think of a long war as anything over four years, where many cultures would think of a long war as lasting decades if not centuries. Think of the European wars than went on for over a hundred years.  Rome was in a perpetual state of warfare for many centuries. 

How long is long for you? How long is long for your spouse or partner?  Do you think gender plays a role in defining long?  Does it vary depending on who is waiting and who is not?  What role does patience play in waiting?  What role does respect play? Do you hesitate to start things because they will “take too long?”  What if you had more tolerance for “long” in your life?  

It’s Time to Go!  A brief play in one act by John Persico Jr.

The Time:     Today

The Setting:  My living room

Characters:  John the blogger

                      Charon:  The boatman who carries souls from this world to the next

John:  Sitting peacefully in his living room reading a book.  Suddenly, a strange looking man appears:

John:  “Who are you?”

Charon:  “It’s time to go!”

John:  “Go where?”

Charon:  “You will find out when you get there.”

John:  “What if I don’t want to go?”

Charon:  “You don’t really have a choice.”

John:  “Can you tell me where I am going?”

Charon: “No”

John:  “Am I going to heaven or hell?”

Charon:  “I don’t make that decision.”

John:  “I am very sorry but I am not ready to go.”

Charon:  “That is what they all say.”

John:  “Look, I have really just started to enjoy life.  I am due to collect Social Security in September and things would really be good then.  Couldn’t we postpone this trip for a few years?” 

Charon:  “No”

John:  “What about the chance to say goodbye to some loved ones and people I have not seen for several years, would a few days make any difference?” 

Charon:  “It is too late for that.”

John:  “I don’t think this is very fair. I have been leading a good life. I give to charity. I have been helping other people and I am finally in that part of my life where I am beginning to hope that I can make a difference in this world.  Couldn’t I get some sort of a delay?” 

Charon:  “No”

John:  “What about trading me for someone else? There are a lot of people who this world would not miss.  Why not take one of them?”

Charon:  “Would you want me to take your wife Karen instead?” 

John:  “No, of course not!”

Charon:  “Then please come along. It’s time to go.”

John: “Look, what if I made a deal with the devil to buy my soul?  Is that a possibility?”

Charon:  “No”

Charon:  “It’s time to go.” 

John:  “I really don’t want to go.  Could I have a few hours to say goodbye to Karen and Jeanine and a few of my close friends.”

Charon:  “No”

John:  “There were many times in my life when you could have taken me and I would not have cared. Now just when I am really starting to enjoy life, you come along and say it’s time to go.  It’s not fair.”

Charon:  “I seem to recall you telling your kids and students that life was not fair.”

John:  “Well, maybe I have changed my mind.”

Charon:  “Why are you making my job harder? It’s time to go.”

John:  “Sorry, but you are a real stubborn SOB! Is there no deal we can make?”

Charon: “No”

John:  “What about one last meal?”

Charon:  “No”

John:  “How about a last minute speech”

Charon:  “No, it’s time to go”

John:  “Still does not seem fair.”

John:  Fades away in the distance with Charon the boatman

When it’s your time to go, will you be ready and willing?  What if your time was today?  

To speak of the “sands of time” provokes an image of shifting sands and dunes with the grains of sand being blown helter skelter.  The shape of sand dunes is constantly changing and taking on new forms. Sand seems so weak and has such a lack of substance.  We warn people not to build their house on sand.  Sand is not a good foundation.   Our lives and efforts can be like this sand. Think about how brief our lives and accomplishments are particularly when measured against the human races time line of progress.  It is very interesting that some achievements of humankind are still studied and talked about (for instance, the steam engine and polio vaccine) while the vast multitude of human efforts are long forgotten.  

What makes some deeds and inventions so important and worthwhile that they will last as long as the sands continue to blow and shift?  You are likely to say “well, they made a big impact on the human race or they made an important contribution to progress.”  If so, were these events just random or were they as predetermined as evolution seems to be?  There are many people who believe life is predestined and that all the patterns of life are predetermined.  My best friend keeps telling me that “choice is an illusion.”  I argue that while the system and government we live in has a major impact on our choices, we can still make choices that change things.  He denies that we change anything and insists we are simply part of the overall flow in life and that my so-called choices are really myths that I believe in. 

So looking back at history, did we really choose these epochal events that changed humanity, or did the events choose us? Did Socrates, Jesus and Abraham Lincoln really have a choice in their lives or where they simply under influences they had no control over?  If we could go back and change things in the past, would our lives be any different today?   If we could go back and reorder events, which ones would we redo or leave out? What if we had not invented the atom bomb? What if the very possibility of the atom bomb and relativity never existed? What if Einstein had never been born?  How would the sands of time have been different? Alternatively, would the inevitable blowing and shifting still have caused the same patterns? Would we still have had Hitler and Stalin?  Would someone else had invented the atom bomb and plunged us into another Cold War?  

What choices that you make today will affect your life tomorrow and the day after?  What accomplishments or efforts of your life will fit into the progress of the human race? What achievements or goals are you striving for that will be remembered in the sands of time?  Are they worth the effort? 

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.” (Macbeth, V, v, 19, Shakespeare)

The above passage is perhaps the most famous speech in literature, spoken by Macbeth after learning of his wife’s suicide.  Why does this macabre and depressing analysis of life hold so much meaning for us? Is it because, like Macbeth, we sometimes feel a powerlessness and futility to life?  What is our “recorded time?”  Is this the time we are destined to live? Do you believe the time and date of your death is fixed? 

I think it might be inevitable to believe that we are fixed by fate and that life is controlled by forces and events beyond our power to influence. Nevertheless, we see countless examples of people who have changed the world for the better by denying the concept of predestination and fate.  Macbeth brought his own destiny upon him by his greed and avarice.  We go through life making choices and these choices decide what we will become.  We are more than candles and poor players upon a stage.  We may not quite be Nietzsche’s Superman, but we are a great deal more than fools and idiots. We are not all powerful but neither are we powerless.

I am always reminded of the serenity prayer: Please help me to know the difference between those things I can change and those things I cannot.  This is one example of pure wisdom. We can change some things and we cannot change others. What will you become if you do not try? What can you change today in your life?  What needs to be changed that you have felt powerless to change? What destiny are you following that is painful?  Who can you find that could help you change?  There is always someone out there who can and will help you?  Do you need to find that person today? 

When was the last time you asked the question or wondered what day it was?  It’s kind of a weird but in a way fun experience to totally lose track of the day it is.  For a minute, it is like “who am I and where am I.”  You feel disoriented and like you are out of sync with reality.  I would bet that for many of you, the last time this happened was when you were on vacation.  Many of us put our schedules away when we go on a vacation and we lose track of time.  It is a very exhilarating experience and one that is all too soon over.  For a brief instant, we are truly living in the moment and not worried about tomorrow and the problems of the future. The present has become sufficient unto itself.  

Sometimes you can lose track of the day for a longer period of time that just a few brief moments. I have been up to the Boundary Waters canoeing on three different occasions.  There was no email, cell phones, TV or newspapers where I went.  It took about three days and all of a sudden, I realized that I was not sure what day it was anymore.  Was today Sunday or Wednesday?  There was nothing in the trees or waters or sky that shouted out “Hey stupid, its 2 PM on Tuesday 2012 the month of May.”  No cosmic clocks, no beeping cell phone, no one saying “it’s time to get up, it’s time to go to school, it’s time to go to work, it’s time to go home.”  Each moment was the only time that existed.   It was either time to paddle, to eat, to camp, to fish or to portage.  One step at a time, one paddle at a time that was all it took to get through the day.  No one telling you, “it’s time to go.”  We paddled, swam, and ate just when we felt like it. 

Anyone writing a blog on time is someone whom you should suspect of either being a recovering “Time- aholic” or someone who needs to recover from being a “time-aholic.”  A time-aholic is someone who is addicted to time.  They must be on time, up on time, down on time, right on time, aware of the time, ready to go on time, there on time, done on time, start on time, know the time and of course never without the time.  They are so concerned with time that it governs their whole life. Like an addict on crack or some other drug, they can’t live without time and they mark the time between their fixes.  The time fix is getting done on time or starting on time.  A high awaits the time-aholic when they are rewarded with a new schedule or a new time goal.  Schedules and commitments are like a pure drug for the time junkie.  What would life be without time?  What would life be without goals and deadlines? 

How interesting that while I confess, I probably have been and maybe still am a time-aholic, I would guess this fits many of my readers as well.  It is interesting to speculate on whether this addiction stops when you retire.  If you think it does, you should read my blog on retirement.  I note that most retired people I know are now busier than when they are working.  The addiction does not quit just because you go on vacation or even when you retire.  The addiction is something that you must kick like you would any other bad habit. Many retirees simply adopt a new set of habits to slake their time addiction. Instead of running to work each day, they run to the golf course, or run to their bridge club or some other scheduled activity.  Try kicking a fixed schedule and see how long you can go without a time deadline or a scheduled appointment?  If you are like me, it might be a day or two and then you will need your fix.  “Oh, for a good appointment or someplace I need to be on time.” 

Being a time-aholic is perhaps a rather harmless addiction, but perhaps not.  Maybe we would all be happier without so much time in our lives.  We long for retirement and perhaps it is because we need to get off the clock.  We would like to kick the habit and we think that retirement will allow us to do this.  We delude ourselves into forgetting the real reason that we are addicted in the first place.  Ask yourself this question: “What is the essence of any addiction.”   I believe that if you can honestly answer this question, you would find the answer (as with any drug addiction), is that we would rather not live with ourselves as we are, so we substitute other things to fill our lives up with.  We do drugs or “time” to take our minds off of the present reality.  We don’t want to know who we are.  The addiction with time prevents us from really knowing ourselves since we are so busy with external stuff that we don’t have to just ever take the time to look inside. We don’t take the time to live with ourselves in the present (My apologies to those of you who meditate).  

How many schedules, meetings or appointments are you running off to today?  Do you feel better surrounded by appointments and deadlines? What does it take for you to get off the clock? When was the last time you forgot what day it was?  What was that like for you?  What if you spent one day a week without any appointments or time demands?  Is it possible?  Do you ever meditate?