Since I am well into the Social Security years, it seems entirely fitting that I should tell you what I have learned about aging. Some it it will be funny, some serious, and some both.
Put simply, I intend to offer guidance about how to survive aging (sort of).
If you read to the end of the upcoming post, you will be entered into a drawing to receive the only know autograph of Methuselah, who is said to have lived 969 years!
See, you are already on your way!
Get ready and good luck!
I grant you that there are lots of things to think about, but today is another day to recover, mourn, cheer, blame, cry, or curse, depending on your position on the scale. They are all emotional words if you read them right.
Some analyze, too, but I will leave analysis aside as best I can.
Here is a bit of what you might call a thoughtful distraction by a famous writer, Robert Heinlein, and then a closing comment from me.
Well, how’s that? I love Rodin, as Heinlein clearly did, but the tragedy eludes me, maybe because I am not a woman.
We all age, and it is the nature of things. I have seen lovely older women, and I recognize not only the beauty of the present but automatically recreate, in my mind and my vision, some approximation of what Heinlein writes of their past beauty. But am I alone in seeing through the years and missing the tragedy of lost allurement?
I see the character in their faces, the aspect and complexity that only time allows.
My perspective as a man observes no sorry catastrophe in myself, though I am well beyond 70 and have had some challenging moments. We endure, regardless of gender, and know some things beyond this time and times past. We have no voice in trading our youth for that knowledge, but what can we do? Accept it and be grateful for what we’ve lived and still have ahead—quite a show ahead, I’d say!
We are on to what the ancient Chinese parable might characterize as “interesting times.”
Many women who are not young possess wisdom about this and other things. Their tragedy has been in their place in the world and its consequences. They are “interesting” in a way not captured in the parable. Such ladies have seen a lot, endured a lot, and won the character only they possess. I will have lunch with one soon, and she is over 90.
If I were you, I would be jealous!
Here’s to my lunch date, still a woman of mystery and much hard-won knowledge. She knows what it means to be a woman and the definition of misogyny.
Her name is Joan.
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The photo by Pedro Ribeiro Simões is called A Very Beautiful Older Woman, sourced from Wikimedia Commons.
Once we reach adulthood, most of us believe we possess a permanent essence. We are not identical to others but unique and different, expecting to remain much as we are.
Holding this belief, we plan for the future, assuming our happiness will depend on whether we achieve our twenty-something goals.
Ah, but goals change, at least for many. Moreover, the exact form of our transformations can’t be predicted. Here is a simple example:
As a boy, I loved vanilla ice cream, chocolate less, strawberry never.
Surprise!
In middle age, I discovered I fancied the strawberry flavor, like my father, and now, as my oldest grandson does.
My first awareness of such possible alterations began in 1971 when I listened to a radio broadcast of the Mahler Symphony #2 given the year before at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony. Leonard Bernstein (LB) conducted.
The 80-minute Resurrection Symphony (as it is called) moved me to make myself a promise. If I ever had enough money to take a trip to wherever LB performed it again, I’d do so.
Time passed. I completed school, and my professional life began. Bernstein continued his own.
After more than 15 years, I read the announcement I’d been waiting for. The New York Philharmonic would offer the music under Lenny’s baton in April 1987. I made the trip.
You could say I expected too much. Perhaps. But veteran music lovers recognize no two performances are identical, even within the same few days. The rendition was fine, but the rocket to the celestial realm failed to arrive.
Why?
The simple answer was this: Lenny and I were more than a decade older. Before the downbeat, I’d attended a few live presentations of the same work, caught many recordings of the composition, and lived a fistful of years.
That slice of my existence contained numerous shake-ups, shake-offs, amendments, revisions, complications, joys of the heart, and tweaks of all kinds. Tempests arrived and departed, fears were faced and faded, and triumphs and defeats lived in and through.
I imagine the conductor would have said something similar, though he came in an older body, one he was wearing out.
In its entire nature, the aging process can’t be anticipated. We cannot predict who we will become, no matter what we believe.
We understand mortality not at all unless a near-death experience has convincingly threatened us. Our knowledge of personal death is otherwise abstract, neither gripping nor complete.
Just so, imagining the fullness of the career I enjoyed was unknown, nor how my children and patients would transform me.
Does your crystal ball foresee what doors will open to you, what people you will encounter, the accidents ahead, or the betrayals of your body by your body?
Who can predict the lucky breaks, world events to be written in history books, the kind and unkind people around the corner, or the impact of a thousand other things?
Neither your brain nor your physical makeup is a stationary entity.
According to the April 1, 2021 issue of Scientific American*, “In 80 to 100 days, 30 trillion (cells) will have replenished—the equivalent of a new you.” The automated process will reinvent you to some degree regardless of your best efforts in exercise and diet.
Trust me, you will not be the same and shouldn’t be the same, given the tuition-free experience of a lifetime.
Were you to meet your older self on the street, you might perceive the resemblance but not the full character of the fellow.
I’d venture that most of us believe the wisdom of the old is the gift of self-awareness and experience rather than changes to the operation of our brain and body. If the common man is correct, how do we account for the extraordinary intensity of emotion we observe in an active child?
He did not learn this.
In our teens, we continue to possess a similar intensity, perhaps more on occasion. Still, it begins to decline so that many unwise, unthinking, non-self-reflective souls often appear sedate and thoughtful before their end.
Rather than supposing such a one grew from increasing mastery and reconsideration of his mistakes, I’d venture his body often took the lead in the mellowness and acceptance the years delivered.
In Plato’s Republic, the author recalls a conversation between Socrates and an aged friend:
Socrates: There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travelers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult.
And this is a question I should like to ask of you who have arrived at that time which the poets call the ‘threshold of old age’: Is life harder towards the end, or what report do you give of it?
Cephalus: I will tell you, Socrates, what my own feeling is. Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says, and at our meetings the complaint of my acquaintances commonly is, ‘I cannot eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away; there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life.’
Some complain of the slights put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly how many evils their old age is the cause.
But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to blame that which is not really at fault. For if old age were the cause, I too, being old, and every other old man would have felt as they do. But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known.
How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles. He was asked, ‘How does love suit with age, Sophocles? Are you still the man you were?’ He replied, ‘Peace! Most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master.
Four points should be emphasized:
Shakespeare, among others, noted we are “time’s fool,” meaning that time plays with us as ancient kings did with their court jesters (also called fools), kept nearby to entertain the monarch.
We do not know how much time we have and who we will be as we progress through whatever allotment comes our way. Nor is the breathtaking acceleration of the day’s pace conceivable until we find each 24 hours speeding ahead.
Best to fulfill your hopes early, especially if their fulfillment requires the energy, enthusiasm, and intensity a young body was made for.
Bucket lists come without guarantees. If it is unlikely that you can grasp the experience of mid-life and old age ahead of time, the list may need unexpected revision.
Those much older folks look strange, don’t they?
You see, I am time’s fool, as well.
I laugh more than ever in playing my part.
If “all the world’s a stage,” as Shakespeare said, I have been well cast.
===============
*The authors of the Scientific American article are Mark Fischetti and Jen Christiansen.
All of the images above are sourced from Wikiart.org/ In order from the top, they are Futuristic Woman, 1911, by David Burliuk, Flight to the Future by Wojciech Siudmak, Teiresias Foretells the Future of Odysseus by Henry Fuseli, ca. 1800, and Future, 1943, by Agnes Lawrence Pelton.
When I attended my 20th high school reunion, it looked as if status and appearance mattered greatly to the assembled throng. Friends came to an identical conclusion. It could have been called a “Festival to Impress.”
I wasn’t that impressed.
The 50th reunion was different. No one cared about what you’d done professionally or were still doing. Friends, old and new, were pleased to talk, get to know you in some depth, and share the light and dark sides of distant memories.
If you’d achieved something worthwhile, you were now at ease with yourself. Everyone seemed grateful they were still in decent health, pleased to laugh with each other, and happy most of those they cared about were alive.
Of course, some who didn’t attend felt ashamed of their place in the world or how they looked. Others, also absent, felt no large attachment to the school or their classmates. They moved on, as the saying goes. Nor did embittered souls want to remind themselves of longstanding anger or sadness. Perhaps they recalled their time at Mather High School as an accumulation of humiliating experiences.
All of this raises questions about what is of value in any life. I can’t offer you a personal prescription, but I can relate a little about myself and what I know of those closest to me. Here goes a short version of what is important to me now and what isn’t.
Having lived almost 10 years since retirement, I’ve become rather indifferent about the kinds of items you put on resumes. My ego is still helpful for taking a stand about things, but I don’t spend too much time pulled back by my history or driven to look far ahead.
That is not to say I have no idea what is ahead, though I’m not expecting to vanish soon if you get my meaning.
I have a minimal selection of regrets and recently reduced that number by apologizing to an old friend to whom I was unkind years ago. He said he’d been thinking about me and hoping I’d do just that.
I have very little in my life worth hiding, and I tend to talk about anything you want to hear from me.
I want to keep learning, which means reading and engaging with people. An instructor in a Shakespeare course I just began said he would not only question each of us orally during class but hoped to make us a bit uncomfortable when he required us to justify our conclusions; the better for our understanding to grow.
When I heard that, I felt like jumping for joy. Seriously.
I care deeply about the well-being of loved ones and friends. I am at the stage when the latter are swept away without fanfare.
Everyone I know my age must deal with one malady or another, and all with aches and pains. In general, these are uncomfortable conditions rather than mortal ones so far. We all adapt.
As an old, retired psychologist, I won’t tell the young what is ahead of them if they live as long as I have. They’d neither understand it nor believe it. Young people cannot imagine the physical changes ahead, and I don’t want to be the guy to tell them. Better they just assume it is all either magic or bad luck.
When I became a new father, I hoped my children would achieve something meaningful. But, you may discover for yourself that regardless of what they accomplish, in the end, you care about their health and happiness. Your approach to your grandchildren is much the same.
Woody Allen commented about the value of accomplishment in a conversation with Dick Cavett just after Groucho Marx died in 1977:
He had achieved everything I wanted to achieve as a comedian but he still got old and he still aged, and nothing special was going to happen because he had achieved this enormous artistic accomplishment.
What did it mean anyhow — that he was going to get a long obituary?
I tend to agree with Woody on this point.
I have little interest in what is said about me, and I don’t expect, need, or deserve anyone cutting down part of a tree to produce the paper needed to enhance my posthumous reputation in the printed news. All who survive me, whenever that happens, will be far better off with the tree.
One piece of advice I shall leave my kids is that it’s OK to tell jokes about me and to imagine I’m laughing with them. No hallucinations of me allowed, however.
Speaking of jokes, I laugh more than I ever have. If you must choose between viewing life as a tragedy or a comedy, I just told you how I prefer to vote. Not everything should be taken with grave severity.
Being a “good” person is not as easy as being kind, though kindness is necessary. It is also a matter of what you do to help repair the world. That means some combination of effort and giving away money unless you are down to your last dollar.
And yet, I don’t want you to think I would leave it at that upon “taking off.” Don’t assume the humans you care about know how you feel about them. Considering it is nice, repeat it to make sure, and keep doing so. Endlessly.
With my kids and grandchildren, the last thing I say on the way out the door after every weekly visit is, “I love you.” We hug at the same time, too. So it has been and will be.
What would be better than to offer those three final words and a hug?
OK, maybe a kiss, too.
==========
Greg Williams drew and uploaded the caricature of comedian and movie star Groucho Marx to Wikimedia Commons. With her generous permission, the second image is Laura Hedien’s photograph of the Chicago River at the End of December 2022: Laura Hedien Official Website.
If you meet someone not seen in 20 years, only to discover he is unchanged, you might ask
Why not? Shouldn’t he have been altered by time and experience?
Unless your old friend has been “on ice” — freeze-dried, flash-frozen, cryogenically preserved — isn’t change a reasonable expectation?
The writer Mark Twain thought so. He saw the long-gone youthful version of himself in need of lots of revision:
Ignorance, intolerance, egotism, self-assertion, opaque perception, dense and pitiful chuckleheadedness — and an almost pathetic unconsciousness of it all, that is what I was at 19 and 20.
Unfortunately, not everyone is as self-observing and motivated to reshape himself as was Twain. According to Edward Young in Love of Fame:
At 30 man suspects himself a fool;
knows it at 40, and reforms his plan;
At 50 chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all his magnanimity of thought
Resolves; and re-resolves; then dies the same.
The 19th-century writer Robert Louis Stevenson was less amusing and more scornful on the same subject:
To hold the same views at 40 as we held at 20 is to have been stupefied for a score of years, and take rank, not as a prophet, but as an unteachable brat, well birched (spanked) but none the wiser.
It is as if a ship’s captain should sail to India from the Port of London; and having brought a chart (map) of the Thames (River) on deck at his first setting out, should obstinately use no other for the whole voyage.”
What follows is a short (and incomplete) checklist of areas of personality or behavior that might be expected to alter during adult life.
The Thing You Cannot Do. Let’s start with something different for each person.
Late in her long life, Eleanor Roosevelt was asked what guidance she might give to the people listening to her on the radio. She said,
You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Indeed there is no better or more crucial potential area of change than whatever the “thing” is for you. What is it that is too hard, too scary?
Only you know the answer.
Physical Activity. “Use it or lose it.” T.S Elliot put it in a few more words —
The years between 50 and 70 are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.
Don’t let your bodily capacities go without a fight. Concede only what age requires, not more.
Interests. Do you read only the same types of books, listen only to the same music, engage in the identical hobbies of your youth? Some people keep learning, exploring, and investigating new things. They say that it keeps them young.
Beware of retirement without friendships and other interests to fill your former workday. Those who lack such things are often miserable. One is well advised to diversify one’s investments in activities and people, not just a financial portfolio.
Appearances. Ecclesiastes tells us “all is vanity.” That portion of the Bible reminds us that much of what we value has no real meaning or purpose. Thus, perhaps your attitude toward the “appearance” of things, whether it be a dress or your residence, might be subject to modification as you age.
The wise man or woman recognizes what is worth esteem and dismisses many contrary opinions of others.
Material Things. To continue the point just made, no one gets out alive. In the end, you leave life with as little as you had when you arrived. Nonetheless, some become more covetous, continuing to shop and buy in an apparent effort to outlast their possessions.
In contrast, others care less for “things” and disencumber themselves, including giving their money away.
Self-Assertion/Anger. One might hope to learn diplomacy, be more direct, enlarge the capacity to stand up for oneself, and reduce sarcasm, not to mention outbursts and a desire for vengeance.
KIndness. If you have not realized the importance of kindness, then you may as well live on a desert island by yourself.
Food. Do you eat only what your mother made for you? Other things might be delicious. Do you dine the same way you did growing up or moderate your appetite and control salt intake?
Time. Most people become more mindful of time’s passage as they age, sensing its increased velocity with less of the race track of time ahead. Robert Southey wrote,
Live as long as you may; the first twenty years are the longest half of your life!.
If this notion doesn’t alter how you use the fleeting moment — cause you to employ it wisely — you are not paying attention to a basic fact of human existence. For example, famous musicians (Artur Schnabel, Carlo Maria Giulini, and Bruno Walter) narrowed their repertoire as they aged. They wished to concentrate on the music most meaningful to them, knowing the day was short.
Sex. Biology and age dictate some changes in this department.
Plato applauded the reduction of passion in older men. He believed they were not as much the plaything of the hormonal flood as those in the burst of early manhood. Rationality was thereby increased in his view.
An old joke about intercourse and marriage goes something like this. If you put a penny in a jar every time you have sex in the first year of a permanent relationship and take one out every time after that, you will never empty the container!
Money. If you know someone who lived through the “Great Depression,” you may realize traumatic events can generate long-lasting effects. Many of those who survived a decade of 25% unemployment remained very careful about spending. Remember, too, the photos of children pushing wheelbarrows full of paper currency during the German hyperinflation of the 1920s just to purchase a loaf of bread.
On the other side are those who spend without regard to the possibility they might need it for a rainy day or their child’s education.
Ambition. Most of what is excellent in the world, and too much of what isn’t, is due to ambition. I’m speaking of blind and belligerent ambition in the latter case.
This quality tends to swallow younger selves, but some of the power-hungry are only chronologically mature, to humanity’s misfortune. Here are thoughts from Colin Davis, a 38-year-old symphony conductor, when he offered them:
I think that to so many, what happens (as we age) is the death of ambition in the conventional sense. The great driving motor that prods you and exasperates you and brings out the worst qualities in you for about 20 years is beginning to be a bit moth-eaten and tired.
I find that I’m altogether much quieter, I think; I don’t love music any less; but there’s not the excess of energy that I used to spend in enthusiasm and in intoxication (with it). I feel much freer than I’ve ever been in my life.
Friendship. Besides freedom from physical pain and financial instability, little produces mature life satisfaction as much as friendship. Many realize this as they age and come to value fraternity and intimacy more.
Appreciation. Some of us see the downside of life, others the upside. The unlucky may have good reason to be unhappy.
Unhappiness can also be found in how an individual perceives the world. His lived reality may not be much worse than the norm. As the losses pile up later in life, we do well to nourish our sense of gratitude.
Being Like Your Parents. Just about everyone tries to make sure they imitate only their parents’ good characteristics, leaving the rest behind. The act of disencumbering ourselves of this unwanted baggage is the job of a lifetime if one is honest.
Robert Lowell described its difficulty in “Middle Age” from For the Union Dead:
At forty-five,
what next, what next?
At every corner,
I meet my Father,
my age, still alive.
A sobering thought. But then, much depends on cherry-picking the best of your parents.
No time to lose. Or, perhaps, you needn’t make haste.
I guess it all hinges on what you think about the need to change.
But trust me, you do need to. Rainer Maria Rilke’s Archiac Torso of Apollo very simply:
You must change your life.
========
The top photo is of Mark Twain.
The legend tells us that King Midas, given a choice of any reward in the world, requested “the golden touch.” The fulfillment of his wish left him overjoyed. Everything at hand could be turned to gold!
When dinner arrived, however, the greedy regent discovered a downside. The food, once meeting his flesh, became the inedible precious metal.
He starved to death.
With Midas as an example, we might ask ourselves what becomes of those who receive another much wished-for gift: beauty.
The upside is well-known: attention, popularity, crowds of suitors, and more. Data suggest this group gets higher ratings on a wide range of characteristics. More social and career doors are thought to open, too.
The challenges of being adorable receive less comment. Here are a few of the problems attached to living inside a lovely face or form. Not every such individual suffers them all, but please imagine I’m talking about you.
Even if you are a member of the club I’ve described here, you needn’t fit my description. On balance, it is thought far better to be attractive than not, just as it is preferable to be the tallest candidate for President of the USA. He wins the popular vote in most elections.
Few of us would turn down a pleasing combination of body and brain. I’m not suggesting you should. But when we think of the best-looking mermaids in our pool, perhaps we might recall they occasionally envy our safety from fishermen and their hooks.
—–
The three images above are publicity photos sourced from Wikimedia Commons. The Ingrid Bergman picture was used to promote her 1944 MGM movie Gaslight, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Next comes Joan Crawford in a 1936 shot taken by George Hurrell. Finally, Dorothy Malone as captured in 1956 by Universal International Pictures.
A therapist learns more about private lives than almost any other professional. Such knowledge informs him of the double-edged nature of many glorious qualities.
Take beauty.
Take beautiful women.
The upside of their charm is well-known: admiring glances, an expansive range of potential suitors, the possibility of marrying into a superior status. People who will do more for you, show you great kindness, pick up what you’ve dropped, and make exceptions for your failings because you dazzle them with bright eyes, a smile, and the symmetrical proportions of your face.
The genetic wheel of fortune blesses some of us, sideswipes others. One does nothing to earn this. Gifts of intellect, athletic talent, and disposition are subject to random distribution, but none more nakedly evident than how you look.
What of the downside of this accident of birth? As the Greek myth of Prometheus relates, we must be wary of a gift received from the gods. Here are a few observations about those complicated presents. One cautionary note: these remarks do not fit every one of those who make men look twice:
A number of the gorgeous ones become accustomed to the unearned advantages bestowed upon them. Some believe they needn’t develop other facets of themselves: education, tenderness, social intelligence, or financial independence, etc. Life demands less, so they give less.
An additional factor contributes to their confidence in a seemingly permanent entitlement. Few can grasp the reality of future unwanted changes to their physicality.
All of us believe advanced age is our destiny, but the idea is an abstraction. The magic mirror, like the one possessed by Snow White’s evil stepmother, reflects an everlasting prime. Time stretches when a rose is in bloom. Its alteration is imperceptible. A different life is unimaginable.
Perhaps we survive as a species because aging long remains at a distance, beyond the horizon, an affliction without application to ourselves.
An enchantress wonders about something else, at least early on: why does he love me? Everyone thinks about the reasons for another’s affection, but a beautiful woman confronts the plausibility her pulchritude alone is paramount.
Along with the power conferred by her sexuality, she regrets that her lover values her without knowing her. Perhaps she is an objectified prize to be displayed beside his most conspicuous trophies; as a testament to his worth and his victories in a chest-pounding macho competition.
The totality of the female as a unique, self-created, moral, emotional, perceiving entity might be obscured by the man’s singular focus on her arresting face and form. The woman’s periodic dismay at the irony of being “unseen the more she is seen” betrays the existence of an invisible depth.
The fetching lady is like a bejeweled well, so breathtaking and artistically constructed on the outside no one thinks to examine what is inside.
I met movie-star-beautiful women whose personalities, wit, imagination, generous humanity, and brains were more impressive and magical than anything else about them. And yet the floodlight of their externals blinded far too many who were already blind to the possibility something more was more important.
If a damsel’s charms are also long-lasting, females share the tendency to discount her strengths.
I recall treating a gynecologist whose appearance suggested early-20s though she was 45. Upon acquaintance, patients did not believe she was a doctor.
Once persuaded, a minority continued to question whether her medical experience justified trusting her. The physician’s presence confronted them with the contradiction between what she was and what she appeared to be.
To the extent one retains youthfulness and allure, an evergreen body postpones the portion of maturational instruction a fading flesh provides. How one adjusts to its transformation and the changing reactions of others to its metamorphosis influences everything else.
Aches and pains aren’t fun, but they are informative. Prolonged youthful skin plays the trick of extending the period in which you can act as you did in your chronological springtime.
Any of us might wish for this blessing, but wisdom is acquired not only by exposure to events and the passage of time. Sages achieve enlightenment, in part, by adjusting to alterations in the package containing their soul.
A significant number of good-looking members of the fair sex find relationships with their same gender comrades challenging. Rivalry for the male gaze creates unease among possible friends. Would-be chums and colleagues hesitate to stand in the shadow of an apparition more magnificent than the hanging gardens of Babylon.
If these captivating creatures get divorced, married women guard the home turf against the temptation they represent. Dinner and party plans leave the insecure wondering if they would do better not to invite a Trojan horse into their walled dwelling place.
The signs of seniority and declining loveliness inevitably arrive, even when late to the game. The loss of a man’s instinctively turning head is still a loss, however long the delay. Grief is enlarged when self-concept is too dependent upon the vanishing thing.
Comparisons can’t be escaped. For one who caught every eye, she not only measures her effect on neighbors and friends but judges her current self against what she was.
If you are beautiful, you are aware of the downs and ups of nature’s largesse. A sense of well-being is enabled by gratitude for whatever one has. Those women who hang on to their appreciation of the whole of themselves will handle both their sexual objectification and its departure as well as possible.
When considering the beautiful, do remember that the higher they climb on the list of bathing beauty winners, the farther they must fall into the water.
While no one escapes gravity, some qualities defy it. Shoot for the stars with whatever excellences best define you today.
—–
All of the images above are sourced from the Art Institute of Chicago. The first is Three Beauties of Yoshiwara (1793) by Utamoro. Next comes Madam Pampadour (1915) by Modigliani, followed by Dorothea and Francesca (1898) by Cecilia Beaux. Finally, Two Sisters (On the Terrace) (1881) by Renoir, Bust of an African Woman (1851) by Charles Henri Joseph Cordier, and Celestial Beauty from 8th century India.
One does well not to dwell on the routine indignities of life. That said, I shall relate a minor one, freshly issued last week from the Indignity Assembly Line, Chicago Division.
It is a man vs. woman story. I play the man.
Typecasting.
I walked into the Adams Street entrance to Symphony Center in downtown Chicago at about 1:15. Lovely, sunny day, temperature about 80-degrees Fahrenheit. The concert would begin at 1:30. I wanted to go to the men’s room before the music began.
A long line slithered its way down the narrow hallway. The ladies’ room queue, of course. A few feet before its entrance was a male facility with no line. I turned left to enter the anteroom to my gender-appropriate W/C.
A short, trim woman, perhaps 70-years-old, stood in front of the door to the men’s room proper. I imagined she was waiting for her husband, though most partners do this by standing outside the anteroom, not within it. As I stepped in, she planted her feet and stretched out her arms as far as possible to block my way. An American football linebacker would have been impressed by a stance signaling her determination to stop me. Moreover, she was not wearing a helmet. In other words, no push-over.
“You can’t go in.”
“Excuse me?”
“There is a woman inside.”
“Oh.”
Not being an idiot, I gathered the reason had to do with the daisy chain of ladies a few steps away. I wasn’t in a rush, so I waited. The thought occurred to me, however, that the guardian might have directed her friend to another one of the many washroom facilities in the building. Or, if the trespassing lady were in urgent need, she (without assistance) could have gone to the door of her restroom, reported her distress to those nearby, and received the consideration my wife tells me is commonplace under such circumstances. These were among the many thoughts I had as I waited, coming and going in an instant.
A frail, white-haired man, bent forward with the weight of perhaps nine decades, walked slowly around me, his mission the same as mine. He probably didn’t recognize I was waiting to enter myself. The female guardian stopped him with a somewhat less aggressive stance than she took with me. I imagined the woman figured she could impede his forward progress with less effort, kicking him to the ground if necessary, or blowing him down like a big, bad, she-wolf.
He was given the same directive. He, too, would have to wait. Or else.
The assumption, of course, was that we were not in immediate need. Maybe the doorkeeper heard no grinding teeth, saw no crossing of legs, perceived no agonized distress in either of us, overheard no barking bladders. Neither did she ask.
Only a chunk more time passed before the men’s room opened to release its cheery occupant. She appeared unconscious of our presence. She began chatting with her buddy as if nothing remarkable had happened; as if she makes a habit of visiting whatever w/c suits her. The newly “relieved” woman did not look ashamed. Just unconscious or entitled or needy of immediate conversation with the she-wolf, to whom she began speaking.
Neither one of them thanked us. You are not thanked if you are invisible.
No other men entered and I quickly joked with the older owner of a Y chromosome that we had just witnessed the fall of the last bastion of male supremacy. He responded that it could be worse. We laughed. Both of us had experienced worse, for sure. I love an entertaining story and here was my daily allotment. More than adequate compensation for the short wait.
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Matinee concerts have their own demographic. The audience tends to be old – really old – not within a discus throw of working age. Women outnumber men by a huge margin. Several reasons: many of the women are widowed, some of the more able-bodied men are still working, and other men are either watching sports on TV or yelling at kids to get off their grass. In other words, doing man stuff.
Indoor plumbing stations are of particular importance to us humans, a unique part of our mental space.
Earlier in life, when we were engaged in toilet-training, they’d been a battleground and a place where “accidents” lead to ultimate triumph. Once we are old enough to gauge storage-tank-capacity, we don’t think about them much. A little later, most of the time spent inside has to do with working on our appearance; chisel, sandpaper, and spray paint in hand.
Somewhere around middle age, physical changes cause men to notice the locations of the facilities more, think about ingesting less caffeine (because it is a bladder irritant), and the mental space I mentioned gets larger. We can no longer take for granted that will-power will prevent us from “peeing ourselves.” When the bell rings signaling the symphony players have five minutes before they must be on stage, the stream of male musicians waiting to take care of their nether regions can resemble a conga line.
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As the older man in the men’s room said, “It could be worse.” It has been worse, much worse. It will yet be worse and also better, depending on the moment. Such is life.
Someone will cut you off in traffic, jump ahead of you in queue at a store, clobber you with their backpack, perhaps not even knowing anything happened.
Bigger personal indignities exist. You will, for example, get older and become less physically attractive. Your body will demand more maintenance, more stretching, gallons of sunscreen. As my primary care physician told me years ago, when I asked why my left knee meniscus tore, “things wear out.”
Or, you could be like the teen-aged version of my mom, who lived with her parents and three siblings. There were times, she told me, when five of them were awaiting the sixth to exit the smallest room in their apartment, to replace the person on the throne. The frustration built until finally, someone used the nuclear option, yelling:
“Break it off and get out!”
A younger woman with whom I’ve recently become acquainted tells me she can still do the splits, a different kind of evidence things could be worse. More power to her. On the best day of my life, I couldn’t do the splits. The only splits I ever thought about were banana splits.
I am not talking here about war and peace, revolution, obstruction of justice, climate change, flood, hurricane, corruption, tax fraud, marital infidelity, or the like. I’m not talking about financial disaster, homelessness, or malnutrition.
We don’t think much about it, but nearly all of us in the Western World have indoor plumbing. Mozart, whose music I heard at Symphony Center on the day in question, used a chamber pot.
The frail, white-haired, 90-year-old man had it right.
Don’t sweat the small stuff. You won’t get those 30-minutes of grumbling discontent back.
Have a banana split instead and drown your sorrows.
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The top image is of a Pink Bunny-Shaped Roadblock , near Narita, Japan; a 2010 photo by Hopefully Acceptable Username. The second photo is a Replica of the Capitoline She-wolf, Palazzo Senatorio, Rome. It is the work of Jebulon. Finally, a 1942/43 called Men’s Room Marines won’t Win This War It came from the Office of Emergency Management. War Production Board. All are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.
I had lunch with two old friends the other day. They are old friends in every sense. We go back 50 years. But this day was different.
One is a man of enormous energy and optimism, not to mention resilience: a survivor of life-threatening illnesses. I’ll call him “Grande.” The other is steadfast and quietly clever, but a block of granite underneath. You want “Top Hat” beside you in the trenches.
All that sounds too serious, I think. We mostly have fun, talk about everything and nothing. Conversation is easy. So this was a lunch like dozens or hundreds we’ve had before, until the topic turned to an acquaintance, someone we know pretty well, though he is younger. Another good fellow and, unlike ourselves, a great athlete.
At our age conversation easily leads to demise and Death — little d and Big D — those twin comedians. Seniors all suffer from daily aches and pains: your knees, your back, arthritis, balky shoulders, whatever. The conversation darkened.
Top Hat had seen the other buddy, Achilles, and was distressed over his appearance. “He didn’t look well. He isn’t the same old godlike, invulnerable Achilles.” Did the lights in the diner dim just then? Who turned on the air-conditioner? D entered the restaurant. D as in Death.
Achilles’ name brought the conversation too close to home. Meanwhile D circled our table as we ate. I watched the lettuce in my salad discolor.
Past a certain age, most people wait for a late night phone call about their parents. The three lunch-comrades lost them quite a while back. In the case of my dad I got the call early one morning 15 years ago from my brother Ed. Dad had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke and lasted only a few more days. I visited mom on a Sunday morning about nine months later, part of my regular routine, only to find her unconscious. She, too, made a “clean getaway,” as my friend Dan likes to call a speedy and painless death.
I still drive a 16-year old car my father rode in a few months before he kicked the bucket. I think about that sometimes when I look at the empty passenger seat.
The conversation continued. We talked about what our dating experience in high school might have been like if we’d been more mature and what a preposterous thought that was. Our kids’ well-being entered the discussion along with news of my new grandchild. One of the guys explained the reason for the brace on his hand. The other reported some exciting travel plans. Retirement issues came up. Politics, playoff baseball, and robotic automation were mentioned. We are all worried about what the world holds for our offspring. Grande suggested a get-together with other high school buddies. He plans to give a call to another chum whom we’d not seen in a while — to say hello for all of us.
My mind drifted just a little. I started to think about how special this matter-of-fact lunch was. How much I love these two men. I was reminded how unimportant are the imperfections in each of us — even as much as we sometimes make of them. And I thought how short will be the time (however many years it might be) before one of us will be absent. Thank goodness we are now all in good health for our age.
I remembered, too, a videotaped oral history I did with my dad in his mid-70s. I asked him what he’d figured out about life. Milt Stein paused for a few seconds and then said, “I’ve learned to appreciate some things.” Not the most philosophical of people, in that moment he became the wisest man on earth.
My reverie passed and I noticed Death moving toward the door. As D pulled the handle, he turned and caught my eye. Did he wink? What a friendly guy!
Then he left us — for now. Other appointments to take care of first, I imagine.
Here are words of Shakespeare’s Prospero at the close of The Tempest. He is speaking about the players in the play, but also about all of us:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
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The top photo is called Sunset at Land’s End in San Francisco, by Brocken Inaglory. It is sourced from Wikimedia Commons.
You reach for a product in the grocery. Say, orange juice. You read the label. “Best if used by ______.” Fill in any imaginary future date you wish.
All of us are a bit like those products. We too have our “use by” dates. No point in trying out for the local football team at age 55. Your skills are past their official, time-stamped point of expiration.
Let’s look at a few others.
Here’s one you probably care about. A man’s hair is optimal at around age 20, for women 25. About 70% of males and 40% of females will suffer some hair loss. The good news here is a South Korean study suggesting such men are rated higher in social maturity than those without this problem. Or maybe it is just the glow from their balding pates that makes others think they have composure and sophistication.
Check out the guy in the upper right corner for an example of the glare and, perhaps, what social maturity is supposed to look like. I’m confident about the former, but suffer occasional doubts about the latter.
Grip strength peaks between 26 and 35 for men, remaining close to the peak through the early 40s. Women achieve optimal performance from 18 to 25, but also retain much of their power into their early 40s. In other words, folks, you can arm wrestle effectively into middle age.
The average man’s hair begins to gray around 30, five years later for women. For what it is worth, I remember finding white hairs when I was 12, so don’t take any of these numbers to heart. We are talking about people in general, not you in particular.
The best time to acquire a second language is arguable. Some say 11 to 13, unless you’d like perfect pronunciation, in which case you need a faster start.
Want to run a Marathon? Twenty-five to 35 seems to be the interval of best performance for those who make a long distance career. Only up for a mile? Then 31 or younger is likely to be the sweet spot. Aerobic capacity declines, as runners and trumpet players are aware.
If you hope for a life in ballet, the experts recommend study beginning in the 7 to 11 range. Injuries shorten careers. Most who reach the stage retire in their 30s.
A baseball player has been thought to peak around 27, although newer research suggests 29, with a gradual falling off in performance.
Bad news, men: the fastest and firmest erections are evolution’s gift to 18 year olds, who are either impressed or embarrassed, the latter when the expansion arrives spring-loaded, instantaneously, and evident with your trousers on in public. I’ve seen surveys saying a woman’s sexual prime is around 28, while others locate the years from 30 to 35 as the all-around ideal. If, however, you ask females in their 50s or 60s when they had the best sex, one study identifies the average answer as 46. A woman’s comfort with her own body appears to be an important variable in sexual satisfaction. A mate’s proper attention is still another.
How about the fertility question? After 30, research points to a three to five percent annual decline in a female’s capacity.
The historical data on hearing problems is compromised by the increasing city background noise exposure and the unthinking action of too many who listen to loud music, “live” or by inserting tiny speakers in their ears.
Should you go to symphony concerts, you might see clear plastic shields on stage to minimize the auditory damage to the musicians themselves, especially those seated near brass and percussion instruments. A number of players wear ear plugs at peak volume moments. Twenty percent of all Americans report hearing loss, with some decline beginning at about 18. By age 65, one-third of Americans are afflicted.
A personal anecdote: When I was in fifth or sixth grade I was paired with a clever girl in a game of “spin the bottle.” She began our session alone by asking a question:
Gerry, did you know the most beautiful girl in the world is deaf?
No.
What did you say?
Back to the list. Google describes collagen as “the main structural protein found in animal connective tissue.” The gradual loss of this temporally diminishing substance produces facial wrinkles, reduced skin suppleness, and sagging (jowls). From the mid-twenties we lose about 1% to 1.7% of collagen per year.
Musical training (not specific instrumental instruction) is recommended to begin before age 9. Actual practice on an instrument, if you are to be a performing artist, should start between six and nine.
Famous neuropsychologist, Ralph Reitan, has said anything intellectually challenging is best done before 40. Of course, he was talking about the decline of higher order brain capability.
You can take all of this in several ways. Yes, life is short and some abilities are shorter still, at least if you intend to compete with the champions. We don’t all age in the same way and a few football players remain near the top of their game into their late 30s, despite the notoriously short careers of most of their counterparts.
Many people also defy the averages by learning what might be called “the tricks of the trade.” In other words, we become wise about life, relationships, and career skills. Many discover we can work around shortfalls with our remaining talents. Gratitude for the life we have makes an enormous difference. We generally think less about losses as time passes and happiness depends on what we are thinking about.
Medicine extends certain capacities, pun intended. Botox smooths things out. Creams to increase collagen are available.
I suppose the best advice is to “go for it,” whatever “it” might mean to you, when relative youth is on your side. Recall, though, symphony conductors don’t stop performing until they drop and are considered newbies in their 30s. A good many are terrific into their 80s.
If I’ve spurred you to act with urgency, do remember one thing: make haste slowly. In Aesop’s famous race the tortoise beat the hare.
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The top image is the symbol for pharmaceutical product expiration date 7.2011. The author is Politikaner and it is sourced from Wikimedia Commons.
