Aging Capriciously

Time is what we all need to watch, at least according to the special advertising supplement that was in the USA edition of the Times on October 23, 2011. The title of this supplement was “Watch Your Time” and it was full of exotic and extraordinarily expensive wrist watches. At a time when many people have lost their jobs and homes, it seems unbelievable that anyone could advertise 68 pages of watches that are worth more than many houses. Breguet, Longines, Audemar Piguet, Gucci, Dior, Piaget, Harry Winston, Bulgari and Chopard are just a few of the luxury watches that were advertised. My favorite was a Van Cleef & Arpels called “Landscape with Elephant.” It had a white gold case, elephant set with diamonds and a mother of pearl sculpted background with more diamonds and enamel depicting a jungle setting. Unlike my Casio, it did not have a stop watch, countdown timer, backlight, alarm or running mode. The price was listed at 77,900 Euros which I guess is about $106, 358 US dollars. I tried finding it on EBay or Craigslist but did not have much luck. I don’t think Karen would have liked it anyway as she is not a big watch fan. (The median price for a home in Arizona City was $109, 542 dollars in 2009. My guess is it’s about $20,000 less today or closer to $89, 000 dollars)

Now if you are expecting me to decry the rampant excesses of capitalism or the greedy pride of bankers and Wall Street tycoons that sport such paraphernalia, you had better turn to another blog. A friend of mine once reminded me to be grateful to the people that can afford such “wretched excesses” since they keep the economy going. Do you remember when shortly after 9/11, President Bush exhorted the American public to get out there and spend since it was good for the country? I wonder if the WSO should not simply be exhorting the 1% percent to spend more. Perhaps that is the real solution to the economic problems that we are now facing. The rich simply are not spending enough of their hard earned cash. As proof, I noticed that the Van Cleef & Arpels watch I wanted to buy was only offered in a limited edition of 22 units. I think if the rich were buying more, they could make more of these watches and sell more.

The real issue I have with the notion of exotic luxury time pieces is that they are so passé. In the first place, they are not as accurate as cellphones and they are usually clumsy to put on and take off. I already mentioned their limited functionality (at least compared to my Casio, which is also shock resistant, I should add). It makes me wonder why anyone buys a watch simply to look at or to hope others look at. I have always chosen function over form. I am less concerned with what something looks like and more with what it will do. Of course, I am reminded by Karen that watches are a fashion item now and not just for telling time. Still if I had a watch like the Van Cleef, I would have to wear a t-shirt that read: “Please look at my extraordinarily expensive watch, that I spend an entire year working to own.” The heck with being humble! I guess that is what really separates the rich from the nouveau riche. Unless you have had 3 or more generations of being rich, you would want the world to notice your Guccis, Ferraris and Rolexes, at least I would. Perhaps most of you would be more subtle. I presume some of you might skip the watch and pay off your mortgage or student loan. Just remember, paying bills is not good for the economy.

Do you value form or function? Do you wear a watch? What does the style of a watch tell you about anyone? Does having money and stuff make us better people? If I gave you a $100,000 dollar watch for a gift, what would you do with it?

November is the month that winter really begins in Minnesota. The song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot always lurks in my mind during November. I can hear the following refrain from his song whenever the wind blows strong:

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call ‘Gitche Gumee’.
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early!

“November is the eleventh and penultimate month of the year in the Gregorian calendar and one of four Gregorian months with the length of 30 days. In Latin, novem means “nine”. November was also the ninth month in the Roman calendar until a month less winter period was divided between January and February” (Wikipedia).
November is when our leaves have all gone, fall is over and we expectantly wait the coming snow. Although in many years, like this one, we often get surprised very early with an “unseasonably” early storm. Our November days alternate between gray and gloomy with strong winds and an occasional burst of weak sunshine. It is as if the weather gods are building up to heap winter upon us but they haven’t yet quite got the steam for an all out winter storm. The lakes are not fully frozen, the paths have little snowfall and the woods are bleak and dreary looking. Not too many people choose November in Minnesota as their favorite month. The storms we get send you inside with a cold beating rain that is no fun to be caught in. But for a few degrees, a November storm could have been a real blizzard. No snow means no skiing and no snowmobiling. It has not been cold long enough for the ice to be deep enough for ice skating or ice fishing.

What to do in November in Minnesota is a puzzling question. If you are smart, you will build a fire, find a good book, get a hot chocolate, throw a blanket over yourself and resign yourself to five months of winter. With enough firewood, hot chocolate and books, you can make it through another November in Minnesota. You still have Thanksgiving to look forward to. Thanksgiving marks the gateway to the shopping and holiday season. No matter how cold and how much snow there is, you will need to get outside to find the best bargains and put the holiday season in order. Sadly, Karen and I have become snowbirds and to be quite frank, we will no longer puzzle over what to do in November since we are now in Arizona for the winter.

What do you like and dislike about November? What are your associations with this month? How do you get through November? What is the most important or fun thing that you have ever done in November?

Happy Halloween. See my post on Halloween, which I suppose I should have posted today but did not. I guess it has to do with my “obsessive personality,” the subject of today’s blog. Anyway, maybe how we deal with holidays also speaks to our personality. For me, keeping track of time is perhaps the most important thing in my life.

Keeping track of time! The concept of tracking time brings forth images of tracking some wild beast in the woods. Deer, moose, bear, cougars, tigers all leave very distinctive tracks. Time also leaves distinctive tracts. Time leaves physical as well as emotional tracks on all of us. Not to mention the tracks time leaves on the environment. Emotional tracks are evident in the greater cautiousness and fears we have as we age. From experience, once burned, we no longer want to get so close to the flame. Indeed, many of us will not even go near the fire again. Divorce, rejection, death, pain all leave emotional scars. For some of us they may never quite heal. Physical tracks show up as lines, creases, joint aches, hair thinning, broken bones and disease. I often joke that physically I am aging more like cheese then a fine wine. I am getting squishier and somewhat moldy around the edges.

Perhaps you see the ideas of tracking time through a different lens. Maybe you think of the need to track your minutes and seconds each day, a twist on tracking your dollars and cents. Certainly, if you watch your time carefully, you will have more of it. Mark down your time spent each day in an Excel spreadsheet and carefully log your corresponding activities. This last task seems somewhat obsessive to me and I am often accused of being a Type A personality. I once worked at a job where I was required to mark my work in fifteen minute intervals each day and log what I was doing during each interval. After I left this job, I decided I would never work for anyone again where I had to justify myself at this level of detail. It was simply an exercise in obsessive control and domination.

Type A personalities are supposed to be more compulsive and more aggressive than Type B personalities. I wonder if type A personalities are more prone to track their time? Are Type B personalities more prone to go with the flow? Do Type B people live more moment to moment? Are you a Type A or Type B personality? Do you go with the flow or do you track your time? Regarding the physical and emotional tracks that time leaves, how have you fared? What emotional tracks has time left in your life? What physical tracks do you see time making for you?

The phrase “hard times” reminds us of those days when things really were tough. They might have been when we had no money, no place to live, no one who cared about us, or when we faced all of the problems of the world alone. Studs Terkel interviewed hundreds of people for his book “Hard Times”, which told the story of the Great Depression through the words of the people who actually lived it. Many people still remember the Great Depression when unemployment rates soared to thirty percent and higher. It affected people not only in the US but in many other countries as well. Ironically and tragically, some people today still live no better than many did in the Great Depression. The world is full of areas where poverty and unemployment are rife and where “hard times” are the norm.

When we think of the hard times in our life, we may appreciate more where we are now and what we have now. This is a good thing. However, how often do we think of the hard times in the lives of others? What does the phrase “hard times” mean to people who live where there is no medical care or where starvation and disease still kill thousands? The “Great Recession” is “hard times” to those who have no job and are out of work and whose home is being foreclosed. Greed became good in the 80’s with Gordon Gecko’s infamous “Greed is good speech.” Thank God, the Wall Street Occupiers and others are now trying to return us to more commendable values. Greed is not good. Greed may not be the worst of all sins, but “it is the gateway to all others.”

It became fashionable to believe that: “They just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. If only they had our work ethic or were more like us, they could have what we have. They could live the good life.” This logic assumes that all things in the world are equal and that all circumstances are equal. It does not take much research or knowledge to realize that this is not true. People do not always bring their hard times on themselves by ignorance or sloth. We cannot always control the world and events around us. Remember the quote by Rudyard Kipling “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Jesus Christ said: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew, Chapter 5-7). He did not say “blessed are the hard-hearted, or blessed are those who pull themselves up by their bootstraps, or blessed are those who have the most.” Funny, how many of us can forget the help we needed or wanted when hard times were upon us. Can you find some way to share your good fortune today with others? What can you do today to take some hard times away from someone else? Be grateful for what you have today and see if you can share some of your good feelings and benefits with others. Let’s all work on rolling back the “greed is good ethic that has permeated our culture.”

A three ring circus! The phase usually means something that is wild, crazy, chaotic, and unpredictable. In a three ring circus, you have multiple acts and performances going on at the same time. Today we often hear talk about multi-tasking, but circuses have been multi-tasking long before the word was even in use. Have you ever thought about the planning and coordination that must go into a circus? You can have clowns, acrobats, lion tamers, horses, dogs and jugglers all performing at the same time. Not an easy production to manage! When we think about the fast paced life that many of us live, it cannot compare to a circus.

Well, maybe our lives feel like a circus at times, but most of us are probably not quite at their level of complexity, not to mention risk taking. Lion tamers, acrobats, trapeze artists are all risking their lives each time they get in a ring. For many people, circuses seem exotic and exciting. Kids once dreamed of leaving home and joining a circus. Many movies have been made about circus life and the romance and drama amidst the big top.

Compare your life to a circus. Are you the ringmaster, a high wire artist, a clown or one of the support people that make the circus work behind the scenes? What part of the circus life do you live? Is your life filled with exciting drama, risk-taking, death defying stunts or mostly the daily chores of watering the elephants and camels? For some of us, life may be picking up the poop behind the horses. Real life is not always exciting and glamorous. What part of a circus would you add to your life if you could? What gets in the way? Have you ever thought of running away and joining a circus? What stopped you?

Have you ever heard the term “Roman Holiday?” Do you know what it means? Allwords.com defines it as: “An event or occasion when pleasure is taken from the suffering of others. Etymology: so called because days of gladiatorial combat in ancient Rome were public holidays.” Does this definition surprise you? Did you think the phrase had a more benign meaning? Perhaps, you thought it meant something like having fun in Rome while on vacation. Well, in one sense, it does, but the “fun” came at the death and suffering of others. Do we still take Roman Holidays? Some people might say boxing, football and many contact sports are enjoyed more for their violent elements than for the athletic prowess they display. Nevertheless, while we might enjoy these sports, it does not mean that we enjoy the suffering of others.

We may in fact enjoy violence, but I draw the line at thinking that many of us really go to events to see people hurt or suffer. In fact, I have a hard time understanding how even the ancient Roman citizens could have been so callous and insensitive. Perhaps, we would have to live in that era to understand why a Roman holiday would have been fun. Today, I think there is a greater sensitivity and awareness of obvious cruelty. Even in contact sports, I see little evidence of a Roman holiday.

Has the world really grown and become more caring or do I have my rose colored glasses on? Are we less likely to go on a Roman holiday? Do you want to see anyone hurt or get any pleasure from the suffering of others? Do you secretly hope to see a crash during a NASCAR race or do you want to see the acrobat fall during the high wire act at the circus? I will bet not. Why would you or anyone else want to see someone hurt?

What was the happiest day of your life? It is a lot more pleasurable to think about the happy times in our lives. However, finding the happiest of the happy may not be so easy. The bad times seem to be etched in our minds, but how quickly we forget the happy times! Taking a journey through my past to answer this question, my mind sorts through weddings, vacations, love affairs, graduations, diplomas, certificates, first kisses, jobs, sporting events and sundry other activities and accomplishments. Somewhat surprisingly, I cannot fasten upon any of these as the “happiest day of my life.” Why is this? Am I looking in the wrong places? What about those book contracts, those great pay increases, and those unexpected financial windfalls? None of these seem to do the trick either! What about those great people I have met in my life? Did they help me to have the happiest day of my life? I must answer no to both of these questions also.

So where then is the happiest day of my life? Why is it so elusive? Have you thought of your happiest day yet? What made it your happiest day? Was it easy to remember? Did you find it had much competition? Or perhaps, you are like me, unable to think of the happiest day in your life? Maybe, the happiest day of our life is still to come and we are just waiting for it? On the other hand, maybe yesterday was the happiest day of our life and we just did not realize it. Are you happiest when you simply live one day at a time and are thankful for the day you live? I think that each day that I can appreciate the smell of fresh air, the joy of a loving spouse, a good job to go to and excellent health is surely the happiest day of my life.

What was the worst day of your life? This is probably something you really don’t want to think about very much. I asked myself this question just a few minutes ago. It does not seem fair to ask you to think about it, if I have not done it. I thought about the day my first wife left me for another man. I had quit my job and moved back to her home state with her. She came out a few weeks early to find work and help get us someplace to live. We had both planned on doing this after we graduated college. I had to stay back to pack and get out furniture and belongings out. When I joined her in Wisconsin, things did not seem right. She seemed distant and cold. I spend the days looking for work.

One day I came home early one day to find her in bed with another guy. I hardly said a word. I took some clothes and moved to an apartment in a small town not far away from where we had planned to live. I wanted to be able to see my daughter as my wife had made it clear that she no longer wanted to live with me. I had no friends, no job and now no family. I called the only person I thought might be able to help, my mom. I asked her to come out and spend some time with me. She said she was sorry but she could not. My brother was facing a statutory rape charge and she had to go to court with him to help his case. I said I understood. At this point, I felt rejected by the whole world. Even my mother did not seem to care about me. I don’t think I could have felt any lower or worse. I had no job, no family, no friends and was living in a new town 1500 miles from where I grew up and where I did not know a single person. .

Now, looking back at that moment, I am thinking: “Well, if that is the worst day of my life, then things have never really been very bad for me.” I had not lost my legs or eyesight. I had not been diagnosed with incurable cancer. I had not lost any children or my wife. Indeed, my life was not really all that bad. I can think of many who have had it a great deal worse. By contrast, I did not have any right to complain. There will be many of you who have had days that make mine look like a picnic. However, in another sense, my worse day, your worse day is all relative. I felt like it was a very terrible day. I thought about suicide and I was depressed for two weeks. I could have checked out of this life. At the time, it seemed easier to do this then deal with a world where I was unwanted by even my own mother. It reinforced feelings of inferiority and negativity. Nevertheless, I did not check out and now ironically, I can look back and say that things have never really been terrible in my life. I have had bad things happen, but overall I have many more things to be thankful for.

Have you answered the question yet? What was the worst day in your life? What does it bring to mind for you? Have things gone from bad to worse for you or is your life getting better? If things are getting worse, where can you go for help? There are people who want to help you. There are people who will care about and love you. The worst day in your life can be the start of a new life where each day can only be better. Give life a chance. Ask someone for help. If you have already weathered the worst day of your life and things have only gotten better, then take some time to share your happiness and joy with a friend or family member. Many of us have blessings that the world would love to share.

Pay Day! What day that can bring more happiness or sorrow to anyone’s heart than “Pay Day?” The meaning of the day might seem self-evident, until you wonder where the word “pay” derives from. Just to enlighten you on some meaningless trivia, Dictionary.com describes the history of the word pay as follows:

The word pay ultimately derives from the Latin word pāx, “peace.” However, it is not the peace of the one who pays that is involved in this development of meaning. From pāx, meaning “peace” and also “a settlement of hostilities,” was derived the word pācāre, “to impose a settlement on peoples or territories.” In Late Latin, pācāre was extended in sense to mean “to appease.”

Thus, the word really means to enforce a settlement on a conquered people. Hopefully, today, our bosses do not impose a forced settlement on us and instead we get a bundle of loot. There are many who would disagree with this statement and with forced cutbacks and give backs becoming common, it would be hard to argue this point. Nevertheless, however it is received; it just goes from one hand in to the other hand out. Who among us does not have more bills than income? Until the “Great Recession,” the average American spent five percent more than they earned. This was true in much of the developed world. We were spending more than we were making. We have become a consumer driven world economy and it has become too extreme. We need a better balance between production and consumption and Green. Green is really a way of thinking about how our consumption and production will affect the world today and tomorrow. We cannot keep expecting other countries or other generations to shoulder the burden for our extravagance.

Come payday, you may be in the camp of happy people or sad people, depending on how much loot you have left over. Payday can be a relief in any case, if it keeps the debt collectors just one more week away. Sadly, it is harder to juggle bills than in the past. With electronic transfers and instant cash and all the other new ways of managing money, we often have very little time between the deposit of our pay checks and when we pay our bills. If you are doing on-line bill pay, you probably have your money taken out of your account in less than twenty four hours. Gone are the days when you could “float” a check for a week or so. In today’s world, paydays just don’t go as far as they used to.

How do you handle your pay check? Are you in the modern world of on-line bill pay or do you get cash and pay your bills with checks? Do you have direct deposit or do you still get to pretend that you are rich for a few hours? Do you look forward to paydays or do you dread the day?

We live in troubled times. How often have you heard these words and think they surely apply to the times we live in? However, if you reflect on this thought for just a short time, you may question this assumption. Did our parents living through two world wars live in troubled times? Did those growing up with the European wars of the 1800’s live in troubled times? How about those living in the US during the War of Independence? How about those living in the Dark Ages or those living during the fall of the Roman Empire when the barbarians were overrunning Europe? How about those living during the Greek wars with Persia? How about living during the times described in the Bible when tribes routinely massacred other tribes? I wonder if Adam and Eve would have thought they lived in troubled times with an evil devil lurking about trying to seduce them. Indeed, can you find me a period in history that did not appear to be troubled?

You get the point by now I hope. It would seem that the entire history of the world is one long list of “troubled times.” Maybe life is really just one big Yin and Yang. Troubled and untroubled times routinely alternate with each other on a random basis. No particular sequence except that they are roughly even in their frequency. (I would like to think the untroubled times outnumber the troubled times, but I see no evidence of this either way) Thus, we might just as well say we live in untroubled times and that the history of the world could be seen as one vast period of tranquility. Like the question, “is the glass half full or half empty?” perhaps it all depends on your perspective.

War and peace, heaven and hell, happiness and pain, life and death, love and hate, they are all inescapable. Life goes on, time passes and what do you remember? Do you see a panorama of death and depression or do you see a panorama of life and hope? Do you think you are living in untroubled or troubled times? Can you think of any period in history you would prefer to live in? Why?