Cantigny
I guess everyone entering their terminational phase of life does a good amount of soul searching about life, what life means, and mostly how best to go gently down the stream to the end. Because we are all so different, there is no pat answer, no clear path---just many measured decisions as there were so many measured decisions in both our formative years and productive years.
For me, I have sort of settled on certain general guidelines for a contented journey through my terminational years. And a lot of it centers around a place called Cantigny. But that will come later.
1. During my formative and productive years it was always a process of adding on more and more---mostly for power, control, money, prestige, social success, meeting ever increasing obligations to more and more people, etc. It was add, add, add. Now I feel a real need to subtract, subtract, subtract. And with each subtraction I feel a little lighter, a little freer, a little less exasperated, a little less rushed---and a lot more time for contemplative thoughts. A sort of "been there, done that" and now is the time to put it altogether, reduce stress, pressure, pestiferous involvements, and try to see the big picture. What I have always needed, and never more so than now, is SPACE---personal space.
2. So much of the formative years and productive years depend on others. Few of us are a Terrell Owens with the requisite ingredients to go it alone and bulldoze our way to the top. He may be a one man 'little engine that could' but most of us are not. I am smart enough to realize most anything I achieved was either handed to me (genetics) or dependent on the assistance and kindness of others. Most of the environmental influences on my life I didn't choose---not my parents, my place of birth, my schools, my circle of friends, my opportunities, etc. To the extent I have done well at anything in life it is truly a stretch to say "I did it the old fashioned way---I earned it." The amount of luck involved in life overshadows all other factors. Realizing this is humbling. It makes you face reality. It makes you more sympathetic to those less lucky who live lives of quiet desperation.
3. Whatever my limited blessings I don't get silly and egotistical, claiming God has personally engineered any of my successes, failures or tragedies. To infer in any way that God assisted me in my achievements while letting those in Dafar and other such ghastly environments be brutally tortured and murdered is to envision a God with the mindset of Hitler (help the 'pure' followers and massacre the 'heathens' or whatever else one might call them). No, I have accepted God as the Creator of the evolutionary process, and the laws which drive the process. Don't talk to me about the sanctity of life because we are all dead, as individuals, in the long run---but it is life itself AS A CONTINUUM that has sanctity and has been the case now for millions of years. Despite my wishes otherwise, I am not individually noteworthy in the total scheme of things. Rather, I am grateful that this God created process---His process---gave me the chance to exist.
4. I also accept that nothing about my life has any permanence. Change is the operative word and that is just the sum of it. We all spend a lot of time trying to prevent change. "Things are not like they used to be" is an oxymoronic expression usually implying change is bad. And this change includes all relationships. We can pretend that relationships are made in heaven or even "what God has joined together let no man put asunder", or friendships are lasting, etc. The facts are otherwise and relationships last just so long as the relationship is compatible with changing times, changing locations, changing personalities, changing interests, etc. Many relationships last longer not because they are still the same, but because the fear of losing whatever is left is greater than the weakened glue holding the relationship together. If one ever counts all the 'close' friends over a lifetime, most are currently anything but close or even alive as the years pass. The tragedy is not that friendships mostly fade; rather the blessing is that they meant so much at the time. It makes little sense to blame others for not changing over time as you have changed over time.
5. In the terminational years it is smart to depend on others less and less. Too much dependency on others leads to grief. Some will die. Some will be too busy in their productive years to fawn over us, no matter how beloved we may be. Frankly, a lot of this belovedness at some point becomes duty. The terminational years can be stretched out so long now by medical advances that the burden and expense on others in their productive years is becoming increasingly oppressive. It is not just a matter of being kind. There is duty involved. People always view it as the duty of the young to care for the old. But there is also a duty for the old to let the young concentrate on their productive years. It is not so much the physical or environmental aspects I refer to here as it is the companionship or attention placed on those in their productive years by those in their terminational years. This modern twisted concept of family values often ends up a suffocating trap. The solution is to find ways in one's terminational years to amuse oneself, do things by yourself, seek pleasure in ways which do not impose on others. It does everyone a favor and especially the aging terminationist. It gives you a life.
6. Some of the best friends to those in their terminational years are not people, but nature and pets and reading and poking around, and eating, and attention to all the simpler things in life. It doesn't make a lot of sense to get less embroiled in the machinations once so part of your own productive life and then get emotionally in the middle of such machinations of others in their productive years. Let them do their thing, you do yours. I rarely accept invitations to join groups for any kind of get-to-gether. Mindless chit chat. If you can't recognize when you are out of the mix, you are an aging fool. If you still seek to be important, or controlling, or socially relevant then you may as well as wear a clown suit for the occasions. JUST LET THINGS GO!!! Then hold on to things which can stimulate your mind and bring tranquility to your final descent. We all are going to die alone, and if the state and religious leaders get out of the way, we will be able to control our own dying process. When that assurance is achieved by law, then the fear of death is greatly reduced. The point of enough is enough may vary, but enough is enough at some point for all.
7. "Just let things go". But then what? I always envisioned most of my life how nice it would be to own a huge estate all my own, adequately separated from neighbors, with beautiful grounds, gardens, walkways, grassy knolls, ponds, exotic trees and bushes, and endless peacefulness. What a perfect way to spend one's terminational years. Well, enter Cantigny. This is the former estate of Robert McCormick, the founder of the Chicago Tribune. He died in the early 40's and left his estate as a gift to the public. Most of the public could care less. For me, a good day is pleasant weather and wandering either though nature settings or, strangely, in downtown Chicago, including the lakefront. I probably average 3 hours a day if it is local wandering, or all day if it is in Chicago. What you DO HAVE in your terminational years is time to observe, to think, to be thankful for past experiences, to appreciate nature---all of nature. Cantigny is the estate I always dreamed about. And if I arrive there between 4 and 5 PM the estate, most days except holidays, is virtually mine. If I come across a handful of people the entire time there it is about average. I spend more time enjoying the estate than Robert McCormick ever did. I walk, I read, I sometimes nap, I think, I observe, I let the forces of nature (however you wish to define that) instill in me the kind of contentment not obtainable elsewhere. One really can feel a part of God's evolutionary process, if one let's it happen. I think even looking into the eyes of certain animals, including your own pets, you gain a sense of connection with the history of life over eons of time. Man is the one species who tries to assign himself a special place in the evolutionary process, creates a God in man's own image, creates a God who favors the human species over other species, a God who meddles with the evolutionary process for our individual benefit or punishment, a God who gave us dominion over all other species. We somehow conceive of our selves as the end product of the process or even specially created separate from the process. When you take the time, and search in the right places, you can gain a sense of perspective, a sense of meaning, a sense of how timeless everything really is, how vast God's created universe really is----and in that search you find real contentment, not some sort of transient shallow contentment found in so much of human centered activities. In the terminational years it is best to step back, step aside, and create your own little world of meaning, observation, expression, and contemplative nirvana. You don't have to discard others, but simply let others set the level of involvement. Select the environment for your terminational years with care. Know yourself and act accordingly. I always thought my best fit would to be a hermit. But not really. I like interaction with people, with access to all kinds of restaurants, nature, a big city, animals, etc. But I also need a lot of personal space to engage myself with activities which do not include others. You cannot fully enjoy nature, including a city, museums, etc. if the experience is filled with conversations about human issues and personal problems and people's families etc. When you wander about, here and there, you need to absorb it all in a concentrated contemplative way. More and more people can't stand to be alone with their thoughts for even minutes. They really ought to have their cell phones,Ipods, and whatever other gadgets pump mindless entertainment into their heads---all these gadgets may as well be permanently affixed to their heads. Entertainment is not meaningful learning. It is just entertainment. Entertainment is not understanding. And I see no evidence that this massive information overload creates any real happiness. These are not zippidy Doo Dah people. They are more like wound up robots, mindless busybodies with no substantive matters of importance about anything on their minds. Everything about their lives, to me, seems shallow, egocentric, and with misplaced priorities. It becomes a case of garbage in, garbage out. It takes a lot of time to think and sort things out and grasp real meaning, to set priorities, to understand yourself and others before you can begin to see the forest for the sake of the trees. Then again, maybe it is I who just can't see the value of it all. Old people never see much value in the culture of the young. Of course none of this is of any relevance here anyway. It is I who am traveling through my terminational years and choose the path most helpful to my own needs.
I think I have seen ENOUGH pushing, shoving, competing, manipulating, outsmarting, winning, losing, plotting, yelling, whining, planning, avoiding, prejudicial crusades, and discriminatory cruelty for one reason or another in my lifetime. Sometimes, like others, I have been the oppressor on issues and sometimes I have been one of the victims. So be it. All of it is now a total bore to me. I sit in the grandstands, distant from the action, and I let it all be viewed now from a more logical, more honest, and fairer perspective. Ethics is the Golden Rule. All else is bullshit---one emotional irrational cabal after another bothering others over personal or religious nuances. Live and let live has never been clearer to me than in my terminational years.
And no place plays a bigger role in my new and final chapter of life than Cantigny. There is the perfect place to put all the pieces of life together, to take the past and sort out all that I have learned. I know, nothing I have learned matters all that much, except the alternative is to stay in the mainstream of life's commotions and get trampled ignominiously or ignored ignominiously---being a bother to those around you, until bitter and angry you finally take that last leap into the great unknown. Not me, I will wait serenely at Cantigny for the approaching sunset. Evolution continues. TIME STAYS, WE GO. Goodnight J.H. wherever you are.
