Living Forward

 

Philosophy is perfectly right in saying
that life must be understood backwards.
But then one forgets the other clause--
that it must be lived forward.  --Soren Kierkegaard

Sadly, as we grow older and less able, there is a little voice within that whines and says, "Ooh, but things were so much better when I was 20."   It becomes such an ingrained mindset with some oldsters that they find it hard to even try to find something to live 'forward' for--something that will motivate the energy that is still there, waiting to be tapped. 

Yes, it is a different kind of energy, but it is there, nonetheless.  In his book, The Art of Aging, Sherwin Nuland, a physician, acknowledges that we all age at different rates, but he points to newer evidence that the aging person can influence that aging.  One source is the observation that the frequency of Alzheimer's is less in people who have pursued an active intellectual life. 

Another source of evidence is the discovery of a class of protein substances that have the ability to protect neurons against injury and death, and can stimulate the production of new neurons from adult stem cells in the brain.  The stimulation and production of this protein is influenced by the amount of activity going on in nearby neural circuits. " Those who continue to challenge themselves are likely to be those who maintain the capacity to do so."

It is true that the aging mind is not the same at 70 as it was at 20.  Nuland quotes Sir Francis Bacon:  "Young men are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects that for settled business."  We are not as intellectually or physically quick as we were, our reaction times are lessoned and, in differing degrees, we can suffer from memory problems. 

The important thing about all this is that we can do something about it.  We will not stay well forever, but, in many instances, our attitude toward our present life can keep us healthy and happy for more years than we probably deserve!  Intellectual stimulation, cardiovascular exercise and a healthy diet are the tools that keep us interacting with our environment. 

Yes, our mindset plays a huge part in the happiness of our elderly years:  depression, and a tendency to look backward instead of forward can cause us to miss the joy of the daily parade.  Man and nature, nature and man.  What, I ask you,  can be any more fun than to keep as actively involved in the human parade as possible.  Let us 'live forward'!!!

A Bag of Gold

  

In her book, Kitchen Table Wisdom, Dr. Rachel Remen tells a Hindu story of how the god, Shiva, drops a bag of gold in front of a miserably poor man.  The poor man steps over the bag of gold thinking it is a rock.”I might have ruined my sandals,” he says, and continued on his way.

Remen, who counsels cancer patients, continues:

It seems that Life drops many bags of gold in our path.  Rarely do they look like what they are.  I asked my patient if Life has ever dropped him a bag of gold that he has recognized and used to enrich his life.  He smiles at me, “Cancer,” he says simply.  “I thought you’d guess.”

Leap the Abyss

            James Broughton, poet and film producer, writes that "You are closer to glory leaping an abyss than upholstering a rut."  This is certainly more heartening than Woody Allen's recent quote that he is "fighting off morbid resignation" at age 70.  Oh, how dreadful!

            Dealing with age and the idea of mortality requires a personally well-constructed mindset. Both Broughton and Allen are controversial personalities who have, at times, shocked society with their rather out-of-the-mold persona.  Yet, there they are, Broughton now dead, and Allen at a rather advanced age, each dealing with the inevitable in different ways, with personal mindsets, which proves that what works for one doesn't always work for another.

             Those with a solid religious background seem to deal better with the idea of death than those who believe that the grave is the final answer.  But this is a gross generalization that I don't want to have to defend.  Percentages are known to lie.  Lying somewhere between each of these two extremes are those of us who are admittedly unsure about what lies beyond.  We shrug and say, "Surprise me."  Some concern themselves with doing something productive while on this earth and others drink.  Take your choice, but as Broughton said, dancing through life is better than life in a dismal worrisome rut. 

                                                                         

Sensation of the Mystical

 ("found poetry")

The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience
is the sensation of the mystical.
It is the sower of all true science.
He to whom this emotion is a stranger,
who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe,
is as good as dead.
To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists,
manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty,
which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms -
this knowledge, this feeling,
is at the center of true religion.

~ Albert Einstein ~

(The Merging of Spirit and Science, cited in
All Things Give God Glory, ed. by S. Rena)

L’age de Creer

Rene LaForestier, a French geriatrician, looked at the lives of older people in a Parisian hospital/home for the aged and vowed to change it.  His answer was simple: create a space in which older people could be creative.   He prepared a room with items that would foster creativity: paints, brushes, paper, pens, music and invited the elderly patients to enter.  Enter they did, and the result of that experiment was the basis of his book,  L’age de Creer, The Age of Creativity.

Perhaps, to make it clear to everyone, he should have called it, The Creativity of Age, for this is a time when other responsibilities and distractions are put aside and what is left is a vacuum that can be filled with nothing--or sadness--or creativity and life. It may well be the continuation of life’s past efforts, or it may be a totally new direction for us to tackle.  Or, sadly, as my dear friend says, "I'm ready to go."  She has stopped living.

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne argued that we should be involved in those things that bring pleasure…and let death catch up with us as it may.  “I want to be doing things, prolonging life’s duties as much as I can: I want Death to find me planting my cabbages, neither worrying about it, nor the unfinished gardening.”One’s creativity is not limited to the arts.  Designing a computer program, planting one’s garden, experimenting with Greek recipes, doing scientific experiements, or playing in the park with children:  all of these stimulate the mind and are productive human endeavors.  

“ This everyday creativity or mindfulness is actually good for one's health and well-being," explains Ellen J. Langer, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and author of Mindfulness.  Her research with the elderly has shown that when encouraged to be creative or mindful, the elderly actually live longer and happier lives. "When we don't keep our minds active, the mind and body gradually turn themselves off," says Dr. Langer.

 As someone once said, when we stop creating, we stop living. Too many of us, when we realize that we are now part of the elderly generation, succumbs to a stereotype:  The Loss of Our Abilities.  It is too easy to say, “I can’t do this, and I can’t do that—like I used to!  Poor me!”  Those around us, usually trying to sympathize with their elderly relatives, try to “make life easier for them.”  But this does not mean that one has to assume that the elderly are not still capable of  human productivity.

Creativity—the ability to know and feel and write and do those things which one didn’t have the time for earlier in life. Creativity—the ability to see over the horizon of a long accepted norm to view the many avenues still available to us; avenues that may lead us to broad expansions of possibilities of what life holds for us.  Consider that the boundaries of practicality are no longer necessary.  If this is true, what dreams there be; what ideas may come, what memories can we reconsider and, perhaps, change our outlook on our purpose of life.   This is a time to consider why we are here.

 Gene D. Cohen, MD, PhD is the director and professor of health-care sciences and professor of psychiatry at the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities, George Washington University, Washington, DC and the author of The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life (Harper Collins).  About his twenty-five year study on creativity and aging in more than 200 senior citizens, Dr. Cohen says,

“Expressing ourselves creatively can actually improve health, both mentally and physically.”  Dr. Cohen also makes some other key points regarding the importance of creativity to wellness: Creativity reinforces connections between brain cells, strengthens morale, relieves sleep and mood disorders, increases vocabulatry, gives us a positive outlook and sense of well-being, and even makes it easier to face adversity.

 Being able to include choice and creativity in one’s life optimizes health and longevity. Love and work:  we can still have both.  Love the day; work as the day allows.  L’Age de Creer.

**The Watercolor in this post was done by an Alzheimer's patient in the program "Memories in the Making", sponsored by the Alzheimer's Association, which takes art into nursing homes and assisted living facilities,  allowing  patients a creative outlet.

Memories

Remembrance. When we remember, we are saying that those who went before us mattered; that they are in our minds and hearts, and the past and the present are wound together in ways that are too difficult to articulate. Yesterday I went to my grandson’s Facebook page and looked at some of the pics he had collected. I took a second look, for there in a half-view of my grandson I saw my father. There was no mistaking that mouth and chin line. I guess my point is that we cannot ignore the past without limiting ourselves to only a half-picture of ourselves. Every moment of memory is an investment in a value that will enhance the future and help us know ourselves a little better, even if the memory is unpleasant.

Let’s not forget to remember family and acquaintances that may have gone too soon. I will never forget one 8th grader I had in class. J developed a serious disease in 8th grade and missed a good part of that year. The treatment they administered gave him a few more years, but in 12th grade, I saw him sitting in the hall on the floor. “J., are you OK,” I asked. “Yea, everything’s fine, Mz P,” he answered. But he was far from OK, and he soon left school never to return. After the funeral, we all had to pretend to return to normal, and normal for some of those Seniors was Economics class. We were involved in developing a product, selling it, and investing what money we made into something of value. As a group, the decision was made to make enough money to buy D’s tombstone. 

I contacted his parents who were OK with the idea, and the stone still stands to remind us of J. We remember him everytime we see it, and the kids in that class learned  how to invest in something of value--a treasured memory we take forward with us into our futures.

An Introduction to Act Three

Introduction

In the corner of my mind that is reserved for precious childhood memories is the image of a book that hid unbelievable magic.  As one opened its pages  a small village magically appeared, like Brigadoon, or Alice emerging from the rabbit hole.  All of this from the two dimensional pages into a three dimensional world.  The extra-ordinary from the ordinary.  My life has been like that; opening up subtleties that never seemed possible, while at the same time, I physically age and became the yellowing pages within that book, as its beauty comes close to closing forever.  To be able to look behind the paper houses and unreal folds of an emerging world, and to be able to look at the nuance in that incredible book of Life; this is the examined life.

It seemed an easy thing to do.  At 78, writing about getting old should be a no-brainer.  I know lots of older friends and my thought was, “I can get them talking about getting old and perhaps record the conversation.  From there, writing about aging should be a snap.”

But it doesn’t happen very easily.  After a bit I opened my eyes and realize that people don’t talk much about aging.  Evidence is that we think about it a lot, but, like politics and religion, it’s not a topic of common conversation.  We may joke about the aches in our left buttock, but we don’t talk about the aches in our soul.  We may make vague comments like, “This getting old is no fun,” but we seldom go into any deep discussion about why. 

Take a scene:  A knitting group at a local Retirement home:  Topics of discussion: 

“Arthritis in my index finger.”

“Do you want to do hats for charity?” 

“ No, I want to knit for me or my grandchild that is on the way.”

“Where’s Milly?  She’s still eating—you know Milly!”

“I’ll never buy any of this yarn again.  Why?  Because it’s made in China and you know what they’re doing to us.”

“Yes, The Chinese will rule us pretty soon.”

Chitter and chatter, but no one speaks the unspoken truth: “I’m old.  I don’t know how much future I have.   I don’t know how I got so old.”    Or, as my Alzheimer’s mother said, when told she was 84, “Where did I go?”

Where did I go, indeed.  It isn’t where life went that I think of so much, but I would be blind if I didn’t realize that my future is narrowing down as though written in disappearing ink.  I do my exercises, but I sometimes wonder what for, or when for.  Are we just kidding ourselves when we think we can maintain mental and physical health by sheer will and a positive attitude?

Probably not.  So, I took a look back at the conversation in the knitting group:  We concern ourselves with the present and what it holds.  We try not to think about what we can’t do any more, or what we wish we had done in those years when we were comely and agile.  We have today, and really, that’s all we're sure of, but, how do we use this present hour well? 

Some of us worship our God who promises a future, and some of us hope that our religious friends are right, but we wonder.  Each yearly physical causes us to quake in our aging boots for weeks before the event.  “What will they find wrong?” we worry.  When will the boom drop.  I remember the boom that killed my father.  He had an aching jaw and began living on Tylenol.  Then he went to the doctor.  Xrays and a biopsy later, and he had his ticket to the grave.  Squamous Cell Carcinoma  in the jaw.  It took a year and a half for the boxing match between he and the disease ended, but end it did.  As they say, “He didn’t have a chance.”  By the time we reach our 70s, we all have these memories.

And so, what we have is today.  But what is today like for the elderly?  Is it as good as it can be?  As good as we deserve?  How does one live each day as wisely and joyfully as possible?  Good questions, every one, because, for the elderly, the question, “What do we do with today?” is of utmost importance.  Let us investigate the American Elderly.  What are they doing with their time?   What are they doing with the day they have?  What should they be doing with their limited time?  What keeps all of us from really totally enjoying these last moments before the disappearing ink eats up our future?  What to think, where to live, who to be with, are all questions we need to consider--as well as the most profound question of all:

Why was I here?