Part 2, The Terminational Years: Figuring It All Out :
One of my friends has referred to me as 'Professor Doomsday'. But in this process of devising my game plan for my terminational years any 'Doomsday' is really irrelevant. If the U.S., at some point in my lifetime, becomes some sort of 'Baghdad West', all plans by any of us become void, and all our lives, like those in Iraq, will become mired in violence, killing, and the ability to protect one's material gains an impossibility. We will all function like animals in a ghetto like environment---a sort of our turn to run but not be able to hide. Of course I could be wrong about the likelihood of such a sequence---I have not always been right, one time I thought I was wrong----and perhaps should it all end up that way it could very well be after I am dead. So the following plan simply ignores such a scenario.
So here I go starting with "Live and Let Live" and seeking contentment through my own activities, not attempting to burden others with the task of providing me contentment. I can do this kind of thing in part because my dad had some pretty solid takes on life and parenting. I never appreciated the wisdom until I myself became much older. In my formative years he led by example and gave me ample room to be myself. If I wanted advice I usually had to ask, he wasn't exactly dictating life for me. My mother attempted that role and so the balance was kind of perfect. The most my father would do is opinion sometimes "I think you are going to find that is not a good idea". My mother, like any conscientious mother, would try to stop me from associating with any 'uncouth' kids. When I formed a friendship with a Charlie Merritt from Crotonville, the part of Ossining known for it's 'bad' kids, my mother had a fit. When my father would drive me over to spend the day in Crotonville he would advise me that "a lot of these boys have a rough family life and sometimes do things which I don't want you to ever get involved in. It is right for you to be Charlie's friend and be aware of how others live, but the best way for you to be his friend is never to engage in any activity which you know you shouldn't. Don't be weak, they have to accept your standards when with you, you don't have to accept theirs." In high school my parents had a huge fight over whether I should be required to work on the grounds crew in the summer. My mother wanted my Dad to find me a job amongst a better 'class' of people. My father took the tact that "Reid is too sheltered, he needs exposure to all kinds of others. It is better that he do so while we can influence him. After he has graduated he will be on his own. We shouldn't teach him to fear others, but to understand others. At some point he needs the opportunity to make right decisions and it may as well be right now while we still can influence him." In my productive years my parents never attempted in any fashion to run my life. My brother used to try and get my father to finance or sign off on a loan for this or that venture but my father never would. He made it clear the same thing applied to me. He would tell me, "you are not handicapped and you are an adult. You are now responsible to make something of yourself. You don't need to have everything all at once. You are clever enough to figure out how to get from point A to point B. Whether you are strong enough to do it in an honorable way remains to be seen. My responsibility now is to ensure your mother and I have enough money to support us in our retirement years. That is the best gift we can give you and Will. We don't want to be a burden to either of you down the road."
In short my parents were role models, not dictators, and never raised me in any kind of cocoon. As a result during my productive years I never really had to fear others, or was burdened with a lot of built in prejudices, or rushed to prejudge the behavior of others. With the so called 'riffraff" of life I learned if you just listened and let them talk they would almost always be your friend. I learned there are often understandable reasons why some people behave and feel like they do. I learned there is far more sadness in life than happy ending stories. I learned it is far more difficult to deal with those who climbed their way to the top with a driven determination to achieve as much money and titles as they could. It often doesn't do much good to listen to them, they tend to tell you what you want to hear, not what they are really up to, they are master's of manipulation, deception, and are rigid. Once they formulate a plan and some rules, the plan and rules become an end in themselves. To the extent any others will suffer unjustly from their plan or rules, to them--- so be it. But I learned also they are vulnerable, but only because in my profession I was tenured. The only real power they had over me was distribution of perks, advancing a person with titles and more money etc. Fortunately for me I made ample enough money for my needs and was content to function on the front line in the classroom. I'll take an assortment of young people any day with whom to daily deal as opposed to a sizable percentage of administrators. Actually, I have a sort of distant empathy with most administrators. They are rarely 'happy contented campers'. They have to look over their shoulders constantly, every day is often harried, the pressures never ending, and most will die without ever having 'smelled the flowers'. Anyway, they are vulnerable IF your actions are on behalf of others, NOT YOURSELF. You can make them do the right thing for others, when necessary, by simply taking the issue at hand and blowing it up outside any private meetings with them. File memos all over the place, organize others to confront them etc. At some point the administrator will have to do the right thing for the aggrieved parties, and for their revenge just wait for your name to come across their desk for anything involving money or titles. In my case their wait never ended. I doubt they really hated me as much as they just wanted me kept a safe distance away.
At last I am ready for my terminational game plan. I think a lot of people fear dying alone. I agree the fear is real and justified, but in reality it just seems first, we all die gradually. As our supporting cast in life dies off we all lose a bit of our own self with each such death, including pets. Secondly, many of the things so dear to us in our younger years become moot in our older years, and that list is a long one including sport participation, sex, all kinds of hobbies, old friendships, etc. You really are not the person you once were and to make it even worse, the world is not the same world you knew when younger. This, to me, is all part of the dying process.
I think everyone needs to realize from the get-go at the start of their terminational years that everyone essentially dies alone. This excludes getting killed suddenly in a car crash and stuff like that. But if life doesn't end suddenly and quickly then you are going to die alone. Any friends or spouses or offspring become essentially observers. It will be you who will be doing the dying and all the thoughts and feelings about it will be yours, not theirs. It is great to have a compatible spouse if you die first. But one of you will be left to finnish the race alone therefore needing at such a late stage in life to adjust to being alone. In a kind of weird way, my unique tragedy in the realm of love has left me well suited to dying alone. This sounds kind of stupid I guess but I feel less alone when alone, and sometimes---I never feel more alone than in a crowd. Early on in my career I took a bad situation, made the best I could of it, and survived. Several of those who made it possible for me to survive were not within any boundary which would enable me to consequently protect them, and they lost their jobs. That has weighed on me ever since. I have learned to view my survival as no different, except in the particulars, to what everyone had to do---work with what they had and try to survive. Unfortunately, by the time anyone learns enough to really live, they are old enough to die---the terminational years will have arrived.
I begin my terminational years with financial security. Without this a game plan would be difficult. This frees me to focus on my own peculiar likes, my personality, my priorities, my obligations, my strengths, weaknesses, etc. My primary obligation, as I see it, is to make sure I return any accumulated wealth back into the society from which it came. With good luck, and the many kindnesses of others, both of which were an integral part of any financial success on my part, I know in my heart this wealth needs to be used as a vehicle to help level the playing field for those less fortunate. Of course I wish I could just pray a lot and make things better for the less fortunate, or participate in a lot of religious rituals designed, I guess, to make God help the less fortunate, but helping the less fortunate and leveling the playing field for them, is to me the religious obligation of the more fortunate. I could, I guess, go work in a soup kitchen or visit the sick in hospitals etc. but what does that do to level the playing field? Nothing. Are those sorts of things worthless? Of course not, and if I had little money then that would be about all I could do. Each is obligated to do what they can, but I think all those with accumulated wealth are obligated to use that wealth, immediately or at death, to help level the playing field for the less fortunate. We are unarguably the richest nation on earth, but we are hardly, in any real sense, a Christian country. No truly Christian country, with our wealth, would ever spend more money to educate some children than others, leave millions with poor medical care, or allow the wealth to become more and more concentrated in the hands of a few. When 1% of the population in this country owns more of our wealth than the bottom 90%, this is not a Christian country. When living wages become more and more obsolete while wealth becomes more and more an inheritable event, this is not a Christian country. Having the above as sort of my condensed version of religion, I will now begin to focus on letting some of my accumulated wealth be directed to leveling the playing field. Most of my wealth I think I will let continue to accumulate until my death. Unfortunately the religious right has made it difficult for me to ensure my religious beliefs can be actualized. If I were to become incapacitated in some form or fashion (mentally or physically) with some sort of condition which requires massive expenditure of money to keep me alive for X number of months or even years, I find this abhorrent to my own religious beliefs. Were this situation to happen I would want to be put to sleep painlessly permanently and my money spent on those in need who still have a life to live ahead of them. Thus I will instruct my Attorney for Health Care to either find a doctor who will quietly do this, or immediately give all my money to those organizations listed in my will so that my own money cannot possibly be used for such a farce as keeping me alive against my own wishes. I have never read any religious scripture anywhere which directs a person to live as long as they possibly can under any circumstances. If a person really believes God decides when you die, not any person, then fine----he/she should stop using modern medicine entirely, quit trying to stop what God is trying to do to you, suffer to your heart's content, and wait for the angels to come carry you away. But please, you do your thing and let others, with differing religious beliefs, do theirs. This is probably the best example of why Church and State need to be separated. ( Part 3 to follow.)
