"I have dabbled in internet 'brain games,' solving algebraic problems flashing past and rerouting virtual trains to avoid crashes. I’ve audited classes at a university, and participated in a neurofeedback assessment of my brain’s electrical impulses. But these are only occasional diversions, never approaching my determination to remain physically fit as I move deeper into old age.... Some with life-altering disabilities — my blind friend, another with two prosthetic legs — are more serene and complain less than those with minor ailments.... My brain would have to become the muscle I counted on to carry me through these final years with the peace and purpose others had found.... I’ve always found it extremely difficult to concentrate when I’m in a noisy setting. At this lunch with a friend in an outdoor restaurant, a landscaper began blowing leaves from underneath the bushes surrounding our table.... The discipline so familiar to me in the gym — this time applied to my mind — proved equally effective in the restaurant. It was as though I had taken my brain to a mental fitness center...."
Writes Robert W. Goldfarb, who is 88, in "The Secret to Aging Well? Contentment/Despite having many friends in their 70s, 80s and 90s, I’ve been far too slow to realize that how we respond to aging is a choice made in the mind, not in the gym" (NYT).
I support the general goal of keeping the mind in shape, but the skill of putting up with a leaf blower right next to your table while you're eating at an outdoor restaurant makes me think he's taking the pursuit of serenity too far. There are other mental skills including protecting yourself from damaging decibels and feeling that you are entitled to basic respect.
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I sometimes think to myself that my brain is my most important organ, but then I remember who's telling me that.
"feeling that you are entitled to basic respect"
True. But I can see the author's point of preferring contentment and connection over costly insistence on respect from strangers.
"Serenity now"
---Frank Costanza, Philosopher for the Ages
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW_s6EqOxqY
"…feeling that you are entitled to basic respect."
Focusing on that is a problem; let that go. (Before you jump down my throat, let me say I have the same problem.)
Goldfarb is right. I saw this with my grandmother who was the most uncomplicated and content person I've ever met. She died a month out from her 95th birthday and had no severe health issues until the last six months of her life (which I attribute to the fact that she was starting to outlive her children). Not bad for someone born in 1904 who lived half her life without running water or electricity.
There are other mental skills including protecting yourself from damaging decibels and feeling that you are entitled to basic respect.
And not eating leaves and dirt.
Another example of a well examined life at the expense of actually living it.
I never cared about the Oscars.
Ever.
Some times, you change as you age, and it is easy to erroneously attribute the change to your own efforts. That may be what happened in this leaf blower anecdote.
I refer to that as the agitation reflex. Measured on a 1-10 scale, the lower the number the better I'm able to cope with all distractions, whether mental or physical. Under extreme duress a potential battle exists between the will, that is disciplined to know that it is a game and the mind, that says to remedy the offense by either lashing out or running away. The question becomes "who" will win and it's often an exciting battle.
The same contest can be fought with the physical stresses that accompany challenging runs or, in my case, mountain hikes, when a part of my body is screaming for me to stop. That type of pesky agitation can often be isolated or compartmentalized by a will that says, stop your complaining [enter body part] and suck it up...no pain, no gain. Then I can mock my mind and think, "I won".
Well...what I've found is that since retiring a few months ago, I still keep myself very busy. It turns out there's a number of things I've wanted to do in my life that I never had time to do before. I worked too much and too hard. So now I'm busy, but loving it, loving what I do, and know that I'm doing it for my own pleasure and no other reason. Plus- and this is a Big Plus: I have no darn customers to try to please, fix, or cold call any longer. (I got rid of employees years ago, working as an independent).
That said, I have friends who have retired that do nothing. Nothing at all. And LOVE it. They love not having a thing to do.
I have other friends staring at retirement but afraid to do so. They don't see themselves outside of their work life, their professional persona. They don't know what they'd do with their time, with themselves. And it scares them. Not the finances, but that missing part of their being- their work.
It's all very individual. But I will say, good for us that some of us could even retire at all. It was not always such for the population, and for much of the world, it's not the way of things. So I feel blessed about it and think back to the years I worked 7 days a week, nights, all weekends, most all holidays- for decades. Now I know why I did it.
There is an awful lot of variation in the way people age, not all of it the result of choices made. It is tempting to look at people who are very old and still physically and mentally in shape, and adopt their physical and mental habits, but don't kid yourself. You could do everything right and be senile and unable to walk by the age of 70, if you live that long.
I have been blessed to keep my mind, my body is not in great shape. But my advanced age of 85 is not of my doing, it is my genes. It is also a tribute to modern medicine, without insulin and blood pressure pills I probably would have died long ago.
I read of the rise of type2 diabetes and think, "is it really due to our diet, or is it due to the fact that people walk and work far less than a century ago?" I know how much insulin I need is dependent on what I eat and how much exercise I do.
I am still here, and although it pains me a lot, I try to keep active. I read online, I read fiction, I have strong opinions and am still questioning and learning.
Life and nature are interesting, we have a saying in our family that we are easily amused, meaning everything in nature interests us. Maybe that helps keep us young. My husband, a marine scientist, ex-professor, is 87 and still very sound of mind and body.
Talk about selfish, the brain uses 40% of our blood supply. Keeping that succor happy is a full time job including the 40% of our life spent sleeping.
And contentment is the best blessing of them all.
One can pursue serenity but that negates serenity. You can have pursuit or you can have serenity. You aren't serene as a result of pursuing it. One is serene as a result of being serene. Ask grasshopper; he knows.
Dementia has made my mother-in-law much less of a harridan. She is more pleasant to interact with on a regular basis. But now she requires more time, more care from one and all. So perhaps the total amount of angst she generates in others remains the same as when visits to her were few and far between.
I propose this equilibrium of annoyance to others, pre and post dementia, to be the "Dementia Balance," and now I will seek federal funding to test whether this or similar balancing annoyances applies to our current president, this past year versus 2020.
Serenity now, insanity later.
I have seen aging and disability up close and personal the last decade. I keep myself in very good physical shape, and I keep my mind sharp with various activities, the most recent being brushing up and expanding my mathematical abilities (a subject I enjoy a great deal). What I don't want to go out the way my father went out at age 73- demented and unable to walk. It worries me- my paternal grandmother also died with dementia and bedridden. Those are half my genetic endowment. Now, my mother's parents died at 77 and 89 with their marbles mostly all still in their heads, and my mother, while not terribly physically well off due to her weight problems, is still as sharp as ever at age 73. So, I have about 50% hope of getting into my mid seventies and early eighties without dementia or physical disabilities.
Of course, I could be hit by a bus tomorrow and it is all for naught.
Hah- wrong thread.
I blame my brain.
"What I don't want to go out the way my father went out at age 73- demented and unable to walk. It worries me- my paternal grandmother also died with dementia and bedridden."
My Dad started with his Alzheimers in his mid-60s, so at 67 I worry. Fortunately, one of the advantages of a science/technical career is that I have had decades of watching my own mind function and, so far, I don't see a diminution of my skills. (knock on wood)
Monitoring my faculties is easy given my retirement hobbies: math and science. Just got a new cosmology textbook and I'm in heaven. I'm understanding some concepts for the first time in my life.
It's genetic, but people like to give themselves credit for all the great things they do to be so wonderful. The people who do similar things rhapsodise about how right they are.
I'd be content in my "old age" if I wasn't watching our society fall apart. I need to take my own advice and not be bothered by that particular "leaf blower".
I like to think that playing games on my phone is keeping my mind active and warding off dementia, rather than just wasting time.
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