5/10/07 The Terminational Years: Figuring It All Out (Part 1)
Now that I am free of house/yard ownership with all the upkeep attached, and no longer need to be concerned about medical events leaving me saddled with hiring others to maintain my home or yard----with all this behind me I can now focus on what it takes to wend my way through the terminational years with a modicum of contentment. Since a little kid I have sort of been intrigued by the lives of the aged. It probably started with my grandmother. For something to do (little was programmed for kids back in those days) I would traipse miles through fields and woods to Sommerstown Road and my grandmother's house. She would then give me something to eat and drink before my trek back. With no one else to divert my attention I would talk to her. She lived alone (my grandfather had died). Despite the fact she had like 6 daughters and a son plus many grandchildren I was struck by how lonely she was. She would talk about her loneliness to a little kid for lack of any other audience she felt free with which to do so. Every few weeks she would take my parents and I out to Sunday dinner at a fancy restaurant, often in White Plains or the Fran Mar in Ossining. I hated that. BORING. Hours wasted as far as I was concerned. I remember asking my parents how come Grandma always paid for the meal. "She likes to do this" I was told. I remember, in one of my earliest formulations of injustice, replying that I thought she was just paying for company. My parents did not appreciate my insight and explained all the things they did for grandma as did her other grown children.
I see it different now. I think parental responsibility stops, albeit in steps, after like 18 yrs of age. In most cases, the failure to let go stunts the potential of a son or daughter. The word most used is spoiled and as a college teacher it was never very difficult to detect who the spoiled protected kids were. With exceptions, these spoiled dependent kids are insensitive to others, self absorbed, frustrated, overly critical of about just everything, whiners, and need constant support, guidance/pushing from their parents or someone to go forward on most anything. I think it also works at the other end. When a parent reaches their terminational years it is not the responsibility of their adult children to then be parent to them as they were to their children in the formative years. True, if you live long enough you are destined to be twice a child, but it does not necessarily follow that if your parents live long enough that you are obligated to be twice a parent. At least not in the sense of being their primary source of companionship, decision maker, etc. To the extent an elderly parent expects that, the more likely discontent will descend upon the elderly parent. My grandma's mistake, as I see it now, was that she depended on her grown children for contentment. Her grown children, as well they should have been, were busy with their productive years and raising their own children. While it occasionally happens, I don't think, even with round the clock attention, that a terminating aged one ever achieves a real state of contentment from such dependency on sons and daughters. If one is going to depend on offspring for contentment in your terminational years then you are going to spend all your time trying to please them----AND YOU NEVER REALLY WILL.
My own situation forces me to face reality. I don't have grown kids to bother and become a burden to as a source of my contentment so I have to seek it elsewhere. Life is strange that way----what seems bad luck can often be turned into a blessing. It is a good thing aged souls have sort of been a distant object of study on my part. Clearly some manage their terminational years quite well, but I think most do not. Of course every aged person has a unique situation so nothing I might think here has any broad application. The secret here is to size up your own situation in the early stages of your terminational years, devise a game plan for contentment, and then follow through. The worst thing you can do is to simply shrug your shoulders, say whatever will be will be, depend on others for your contentment, then reach down into your bag of religious beliefs, rid yourself of any responsibility, and claim God will see you through it. Good luck with that, more likely you will end up feeling, "God, why have you forsaken me"? And be angry at those who YOU selected to be your source of contentment, including God.
I think because of my peculiar situation in life a lot of older people said things to me in private that they would not say to any of those closer to them. From all of this input and observation I have kind of concluded, "Wow. So little is as it seems on the surface, this is not the way to terminate, don't go down this road yourself if you can help it." If there is a singular generalized action that would enable the most people to face their terminational years with a greater sense of contentment it would be to change our legal system so that everyone has the right to control their own dying process. If dying is not personal, I don't know what is. No one else's religious beliefs or opinions or feelings or tradition should ever be used to override anyone's own feelings or decisions regarding their own dying process. There is no best way to die outside of letting every person's dying process be under their own control. Progress here is happening but incrementally slow, hardly much faster than any progress on treating recreational drug abuse as a medical problem rather than a criminal event. The pervasive damage done to our society, especially in the ghettos, by this inane War on Drugs, is a real embarrassment to civilized living, and a crime against humanity for those trapped in these rural and urban drug battle war zones. It is sustained and fueled by a massive War on Drugs Industry just as military actions to solve global conflicts is fueled by a massive industrial/military complex. There is no way to have any universal comprehensive health care program or save our environment with the kind of resources we currently spend to support our vast military/industrial complex or our War on Drugs. These two ventures have virtually come to define us as a nation and that is a real tragedy. And I sense, based on our philosophical historical origins, this is all very much un-American. Of course those who support military adventurism to solve world conflicts and support the War on Drugs as some sort of criminal problem feel I am the un-American one.
To approach any search for contentment in my terminational years I need start with seeing the forest first, before directing any attention to the trees. For years I have felt if you have had a good life up till, let's say 50, you have been a success story; nothing that can happen thereafter can undo the success. Any good years after 50 I consider a bonus. Thus I am already on my 17th bonus year. My next broad-based generalization is that we all exaggerate our own part in any success. I, for example, didn't really choose my parents, what country I was born in, what religion I inherited, what neighborhood I grew up in, what grammar or high schools I attended, any athletic ability, my physical appearance, my personality, my sexual nuances, whether I could escape the battlefield of a war, etc. AT BEST, given such a slew of unmerited blessings, I just didn't screw it all up. The next reality I have wrestled with over time is my belief that God is good, the creator of this planetary life, and yet bad things happen to good people, to defenseless animals, to the different, to the powerless etc. It is hard to accept an all powerful 'good' God would allow this. Clearly in this God created system the playing field is not level. I can find no escape from this dilemma except to interpret religion as simply the duty of the fortunate to at all times try to level the playing field. To the extent we consistently support efforts to level the playing field for all, bring justice to all, create opportunities for the less fortunate to better themselves, to tolerate diversity, to protect the environment which nourishes the quality of life for all God's creations---to the extent we individually support all such efforts, we are then religious. Any other application of religion, to me, constitutes a farcical fraud including the notion that we can use prayer to better the lives of others. To the extent that prayer gives us the strength to do the right thing I guess it serves a purpose. I don't close out the possibility that God sometimes intervenes with the Creative Process in His universe, but clearly this is rare, and I doubt it ever has anything to do with any individual's personal welfare.
In the context of all I have said above I find this obsession of the religious right with 'family values' to be offensive to religious duty. All parents have the obligation to raise their children as best they can. If that is what is meant by family values I am all for it. To the extent 'family values' constitutes a lifestyle of self centered self achieving self enriching self admiration of one's own lifestyle nuances to the neglect of the broader religious obligation to tolerate others and level the playing field for all of God's children---to the extent family values constitutes that more limited sort of mentality, I am against it. That just generates conflict, indifference to the plight of others, intolerance, greed, and an ever increasing disparity between the wealth of the affluent and the poor.
My next broad observational generalization is that mutually enriching relationships can become neutralized or inane without blame to either party. Time changes, people change, distance changes, situations change----any of this can alter relationships. That is a blunt reality, one in which "all the King's horses and all the King's men cannot put Humpty Dumpty together again." Because all of us live amongst a diverse spectrum of personalities independent of race, religion, and sexual orientations, no one can be all things to all people or to the same people all the time. Time passage and changing distances often alter relationships. Sometimes welcomes can get worn out. Such is life and only fools assign blame to someone for every altered relationship. Those who cannot accept diversity and change cannot live contented lives. LIVE AND LET LIVE IS THE FOUNDATION OF CONTENTMENT. You don't bother me, I don't bother you---while those of us with situational advantages have a religious duty to use our accumulated wealth of knowledge or money to level the playing fields of life--- and then, only then, the world is enriched for everyone. This is religion in it's purest essence. All else is self centered, self rationalized bullshit. All the rituals, the glittering temples, the varying cultures and dress, the sectarian titles, and the peculiarities amongst man-written scripture mean nothing---a lot of ado, smoke, and mirrors which generate conflict and intolerance. It is no coincidence that the religious right of any religion are the ones who most support military ventures to solve conflicts. They see themselves as God's warriors doing God's will. In their faith based use of brain power there is no need for debate, discussion, and God forbid any changes. Obviously I see it just the opposite. To envision Jesus or Buddha or any other founding prophet of any major religion engaged in the current bombings by any side in all these military engagements across the globe is simply an absurdity. Religion has never been about 'Bombs away'. I prefer Lincoln's approach: "I defeat my enemies by making them my friend." I would add to this that you best improve the welfare of any society, including the affluent, by leveling the playing field for the less fortunate. Trickle down is a cruel selfish hoax. The more realistic truth is that once playing fields are not so unequal, conflict amongst groups subsides. Masses of people with nothing in life to lose are dangerous. It may well be that no time in world history has ever seen such masses of people across the globe with such precious little to lose existing alongside such masses of people with so much to lose. Add to this overpopulation and the consequent depletion of natural resources coupled with climate change---and it becomes increasingly irrational to be optimistic. Bush's "they can run but they can't hide" mentality is rapidly generating a kind of chaotic wave of human and structural destruction, a kind of battle pitting the 'haves' against the 'have nots' across the globe. History has made clear who always wins these kinds of battles---the 'have nots'. The affluent and educated have no chance in Iraq, they cannot protect all their acquisitions and are fleeing in droves. The affluent and educated in our own urban and rural Drug War zones could not protect their acquisitions either and fled to the suburbs. As the have nots now begin to accumulate in the suburbs the process will repeat itself. More and more people find themselves wondering, where can we flee to now?
With all of the previous generalizations as background, both personal and global, I ponder the best plan for my terminational years. Today's situation in the U.S. seems like some version of the 1920's with something far more ominous than an economic depression on the horizon. (Part 2 to follow)
