Pensive Cogitations at the Start of Life’s Last Laps
Change, Diversity, and Time—these are important factors in the evolutionary process. The environment of our planet changes over time, not human time, but evolutionary Time—which sometimes takes thousands or millions of years. The changes in environment occur for varied reasons (the latest being human activities) but all dictated by the laws which govern the evolutionary process. In my case, whatever force created these laws I call God. Diversity among all planetary life enables life to continue and progress—to adjust to environmental changes and become more advanced in the process. Nothing about this evolutionary process is geared to making any particular member of any species more contented, or more successful. Humans have invented this notion that there is a God who is constantly judging our behavior and will protect and reward us as individuals IF we happened to have inherited the right religion and scripture. Now really, I mean for sure really, if this were true, by now the statistics, which we are good at by now, would show clearly that those who are serious followers of a particular religion, would die less from serious diseases, catch these diseases less often, fare better in the work place with more promotions and increases in salary, fare better on the battlefield, do better in sports, and so on. No such statistics exist. But that hardly stops prayer from being exercised endlessly in an attempt to spur God into helping us personally. The only stats I know of which hint at providing us personal contentment are those which demonstrate that those who help or serve others (the Golden Rule) end up more contented than those who focus entirely on self serving goals which include only their own family, their own culture, their own religion. their own community, their own race, or their own country. Mario Como said it best “the way to serve yourself is to serve others”. Aristotle, ages before, said it maybe first: “the only way to assure yourself happiness is to learn to give happiness”. And for all of us who thrive on ‘bargains’, no matter how pitiful the wages of those who provide the bargains—Francoise Sagan said it best: “The rich have a passion for bargains as lively as it is pointless.” Notice here I used the term “us”.
This need for the Golden Rule to be the basis of our ethics, is perhaps the only ethical principle to be acknowledged globally by everyone, of every religious bent, to be a truly ethical principle. Ethics is an advanced characteristic of the human race, we don’t have to join a particular human devised religion to have this trait. Because it is a human trait, it will vary like every other human trait, from person to person. Just like Terrell Owens had to work harder with more willpower and self focus to become a talented wide receiver, compared to those with more genetic talent in that area——so too do many people have to work harder to live a more ethical life than others. Nor is it a numbers game. Some athletes, with less potential genetic talent than Terrell Owens, who is stat-wise clumped at the top, may have used more willpower and self focus to have achieved at a lesser level. I taught thousands of students over my lifetime. The percentage of students to whom I was fair and actually helped is what counts. A person who lives in a smaller personal world, and grows his own food to eat and lives simply in a rural shack but is always helpful and kind to the few others with whom he/she comes in contact, can be just as ethical. Probably the percentage of time we are ethical, and the extent to which we are ethical, to everyone in our pathway, is what counts toward making ourselves actually contented with our lives.
Thus, it is the evolutionary process which determines the future of evolution, not any of us as individuals. All we can do, existing during a minuscule period of evolutionary Time, by chance, is to maximize our potential for contentment. That is all we really have control over, and since we are all different by genetics and our actual environment, there will not be any universally best way to achieve the goal of personal contentment. This means when I introspectively write about my own life, my own priorities, my own strengths and weaknesses, my own uniqueness, my own situations, and so on—anyone one else would have to tweak all of it to their own unique self. After all is said and done, and with me more is often said than done, I can only write about certain aspects of life from my own perspective. After all, you ain’t me, and if you insist on praying, maybe you should thank God for that. Smile.
When I retired my goal was to entirely revamp my lifestyle, priorities, and goals. The terminational years are not the same as our productive years. Sometimes I hear retired people say they fully intend to stay productive. Maybe it is a semantic issue here. To me productive means you produce something useful for society, you perform some service to society, you earn enough money to support whatever life style you live, you are able to effectively raise and support a family, things like this. That is, after all, exactly what we retire from.
Of course some people retire later than others for varied reasons. So there is no clear age at which one ends their productive years and begins their terminational years. Also, the terminational phase of life is a time period, it doesn’t mean one has one leg in the grave. I have been retired almost 20 years and am in relatively good health. Sure, the odds of poor health become greater with each passing year. Many asked why I retired when I did. Part of it was self imposed chronic pressures of the job including all the deadlines, the long hours, the endless manipulations to solve particular problems on my desk, the competition with others over volatile issues that needed to be resolved, and the repetitiveness of student problems that I constantly faced. In general, younger teachers are more effective with students because they bring new energy and more patience to listen longer to what students have on their mind. College teaching can be a cake-walk or it can be a pressure cooker. My dubious talents included creating a pressure cooker even if there was none present. If some administrators didn’t always like me it wasn’t for lack of good results in my various endeavors, but the amount of commotion to achieve good results. One Chairperson said often, “With Reid you get results and you get commotion and they are inseparable” Probably true, and it took it’s toll on me. For those who think “A little of Reid is enough”, imagine what I have to put up with. Young students tend to benefit from commotion, a certain pervasive tension, providing that commotion steers them in the right direction. On a sports team the biggest locker room contributors to success are those who try the hardest, not those who are everybody’s friend. Show me a class or a team where everyone is relaxed and happy and invariably you have a class or team in which performance level suffers.
The reality is this: The evolutionary process determines the future, not the human species, contrary to any self serving claims made by us. The best we can ever achieve is some contentment in our lives. Clearly our terminational years will be very different from our productive years just as our productive years were very different from our formative years. Poor planning for our productive years often means little of our potential is ever reached in our productive years. When I retired I kind of figured some planning was in order for any enjoyable terminational years. Anyway, so what changes did I make in my life? My main goal for retirement was to generate a situation where each morning I got up and spent the day doing what I wanted to do, not have obligations to do endless things others wanted me to do or be a slave to my owned property. When I was a young teenager and people asked me what I wanted to be when grown, I invariably replied “A hermit”. That goal has always been buried in my psyche all my life. But not a true hermit living in the forest. I love forests—but as a daytime wandering venture followed by a scrumptious meal and a Sleep Number bed. Nothing about me is built like a rugged pioneer. Actually, I like people, all kinds of people, diversity has never been something which irritated me but rather intrigued me. Observing people interests me. My guess is a lot of the rapport I had with students was based on their perception that I really was on their side. It was kind of to me like “Ok, I have an interesting student here, with a unique problem, and what kind of unique solution might work?”
Once retired and without a title and institution behind me, I was quite crippled in any ability to solve many problems young people or others in general have. Gone were the days when I could pick up a phone and use my title and institution to force a solution. That of course is just fine since it enables me to justify being more of a hermit. It did seem unethical, once retired, to suddenly ignore the plight of the less fortunate. Thus, I created my FANAFI Fund and helped the less fortunate via this route. Perfect. One huge advantage I have in retirement is that I have no expensive hobbies except good eating and buying a new car every four years—not an expensive car but the most efficient one out there, a Prius. I really like those not really so little cars. My next goal was to live in such a way that I was not bothering others or interfering with others or making anyone’s life more difficult. I don’t think there is anyone who could really say that I have been any kind of impediment to their own lives since retirement. That doesn’t mean everyone likes me or thinks I am their cup of tea. Of course not. That’s fine and to be expected as long as they don’t like me because I am interfering with their own life. It is kind of dumb to feel that everyone has to like us in order for them to be a good person themselves. There are a lot of good people who don’t particularly like me. My obligation is to then give them some space, let them exist their own way. Hermits love that kind of solution. “The best thing you can do for me is to leave me alone” is like the national anthem for hermits.
Another goal was to limit drastically the amount of time I spend in idle chit chat with people I seldom or will never see again, or with acquaintances I meet in the course of my daily living. After X number of years, inane chit-chat loses any meaningfulness. There are a few people who I do spend a good amount of time with on the phone. Plus, I relate to quite a few people via my musings of varied sorts, albeit that is mostly a one way street. But since people request to receive these emails, it is some kind of relationship. Most people know a hell of lot more about me than I know about them, I reckon in large part because they are ‘force-fed’ info about me. The only defense I can muster here is that they have to sign on for this force-feeding. I am really not interested in selling anyone anything. The only people who really get on my nerves a bit are those who show so little interest in, or tolerance of, or respect for diversity in others. Those with little Golden Rule in their ethical nature are not targets of admiration on my part. Too much family values and not enough effort to help the less fortunate can grate me. Unfortunately, a lot of otherwise good people show little concern for those with heavy burdens. Humans, by nature, tend to be a rather greedy species. Enough for ourselves, is seldom enough.
Our emotional state in retirement is important. For me gratitude for the many who helped me survive and achieve some modest successes is a big part of my mental sustenance during my terminational years. I know people change over the years, as do I, and so couplings that once fit like a glove may not fit well at all in the present. No one is to blame. Their importance to me in younger years does not become less appreciated. That would be dumb. Others have an advantage, many people important to me in my younger years do not write endless musings about their thoughts to me, so I don’t have the basis to conclude they have now arrived at idiocy—like they may conclude with me. But that’s ok, in fact poetic justice— I gave them the fodder for their feelings.
Another goal of retirement was to decline to get involved in group decision making. I live in a high rise Condominium these days and my contribution is always this: I will go along with whatever the majority wants, and if I don’t like it here at some point I will move. It is not just the frustration many older people get trying to stay active in group decisions, but it is best and right that younger people make the group decisions. One of the main reasons churches are in the membership dilemma that they are now in is that most church decisions are made by church members in their terminational years. The Catholic Church is probably the worst here with mostly old people in positions of importance. I have genuinely enjoyed not being in charge of hardly anything. I remember my dad, once he retired, he just handed over all the finances and decision making to my mother. That ended any infighting, and my mother, for the rest of her life, made the household decisions but then, having the decision making power, she bent over backwards to please my dad. We like to think power is so important, but during our terminational years only fools keep feeling that way. Power slips away, as well it should.
The neighborhood gang that I grew up with was unique in that we held annual get-togethers for years after we were full grown adults. While our parents were still alive we all would arrange to visit our parents at the same time and then get together for a dinner out— for me and one of my friends, this would include closing a bar in the wee hours of the morning. I loved those get-to-getters. At some point these get-to-getters got extended, first for three days, then five, and I think now they are up to a week. That’s a long get-together and for me, an expensive one which required air plane fares, rented car, and the expense of whatever we did each day. That’s a good chunk of money that could go into my FANAFI Fund. The problem then arose as to what kind of things we would do each day. There were 5 of us and to no one’s surprise my notion of things to do each day was quite different from the majority. Basically, I am a nature (not mature) person and really don’t want to spend a fortune to do things I can do where I live, like go to a ballgame or the race track etc. The solution was to do things by consensus. Of course consensus meant majority rule every time. I felt we should rotate who decides what we do, where we do it, etc. Given how in tune four of the participants were on most every matter, with me being of a different bent quite often, the get-to-gethers became some sort of historical duty rather than an enjoyable break for me. Not only that, but with an exception or two I had no real involvement with them anymore and so it was mostly remembrances, family activities, home projects, and endless farcical witticisms. My nature is full of nonsense BUT not for extended periods of time. An evening of nonsense is one thing, a week of it is intolerable. I stopped going and it really did wonders for them in that now everyone is on board with their reunion plans and they really find greater enjoyment without me being around tolerating, but not really that much involved. I tried to contribute in some sort of way from a distance with contests for them to engage in, buy a dinner for them, stuff like that, but that doesn’t work—of course it doesn’t, ‘you no like the rules, you no play the game.’ Life is full of these kind of circumstantial changes which creates a whole new ballgame. If we can’t be a positive force in a situation, don’t be a force at all. This is especially true in our terminational years. The past memories mean everything, all this current stuff is simply irrelevant to my current life. There is never anything wrong with live and let live. Thus, I give me a gold star for letting my absence be a positive contribution to once invaluable contributors to my formative years. I could easily have self destructed in my youth without them.
One drawback with observing more than engaging in group plans is that one starts over reacting to minor stuff. Currently, used to no arguments or conflicts of any sort with anyone, a minor blip in daily life can generate too strong a response. So that I have to constantly work on, this over-reacting to minor matters. This negative aspect of my personality was apparent to students during my productive years. On course evaluations it was often noted that ‘this instructor has a temper which might erupt at any time. He handles major problems with unusual calm, but little ones sometimes enrage him.’ Still, overall they would often say, “I hope he never changes, he really is on our side.”. I reckon some degree of instability is not always bad. It kept students on their toes and increased their effort not to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. A student might start to irritate me in some way or other over some damn thing during class and other students would start telling that student to ‘“shut up, Dr. James is going to lose his cool and then we are going to have to learn this stuff from the book if he walks on us.” Sometimes a speck of genius is coupled with emotional or mental instability.
In my terminational years I find a lot of enjoyment from simple things: Trying to figure Riva the Horse and Sheebiejiebee the cat out, enjoying the quietude of nature, taking a nap if needed, cooking some tasty meal, reading biographies of interesting people, chatting with a security guard for a few minutes, bantering with people in the building on the way in or out, occasional lunches with a wide assortment of ‘characters’, meant in a positive way. Most people really do have a story to tell. But that doesn’t mean they can get too near me, the Howard Hughes of Seven Bridges (the condo I live in).
If we want to do what we want to do most all day in our terminational years, then don’t get ourselves indebted to others so that we owe them tit for tat. Having no immediate family—others, out of kindness, feel obligated to include me in holiday festivities. The truth is, nothing is more insufferable to me than spending a day chatting with other people’s relatives. The guest door no sooner closes behind me than I can’t wait to go home. This is not something one can be gentle about. I tell people “don’t even think of inviting me over, I do not like spending a day chatting with people I am not going to see again and are not part of my life.”
Meaningless gift giving is another thing I put a stop to years ago. If you are getting gifts from me there is an imposter loose. Most people I am involved with have no need for a gift. Or someone to buy them a meal. Once we go down that road, it never ends and we spend much of our lives buying gifts no one needs or often even wants, wasting time remembering whose turn it is to buy a meal, and then listen to fussing often about who took advantage of whomever paid for the meal. It’s pure nonsense. I was at a meal once where someone ordered two meals when someone else was paying and took one home. That’s planning ahead. I rarely entertain anymore, no one is moping about it, and when I do the gatherings are small, never more than 5. Entertaining today is more and more something done on the internet. I always warn people “don’t bring your ass through the door bearing some trinket or bottle of wine or gift of any sort.” Sometimes I don’t even provide food, we just order out from a menu beforehand with each paying for what they order and I go pick up the orders and bring them to my place. Seating and utensils are on the house. Why do I do this? Because then no one owes me a meal, for you can bet your ass that I would get tacked on to some gathering where I end up chit chatting with people I will never see again. Hermits have to stay on their toes.
In a general sort of way my priority is to maximize the things I enjoy doing by myself and not seek to make a lot of new friends whose function becomes one of amusing me in some fashion. During the terminational years the number of good friends will get less no matter how hard we try to maintain an active social circle. If we live long enough, most of the people who meant the most to us are dead and can’t attend any funeral. So clergy and others will just make up nice things to say, before gathering to eat and socialize. No harm at all, but not my bag either. Unless I am really close to family members of the deceased I never go to funerals. The few times I went to a funeral of someone close to me, for the reason of being close to their family, I never went near the casket. I just don’t wish to have a mental image of him or her in a casket. I don’t mind memorial services held some time after the death where people who knew the deceased well give testimonials. That sure beats some clergy person whipping out some memorized verbiage suitable for about anyone.
These days I still genuinely like most people, but not in my face. I learned long ago if I want to get numerous invitations to gatherings just never go. The least likely we are to go (at least in my case) the more likely I will be invited. When I don’t show, it was to be expected and no one is put out. If I do go, then they are honored, just for the silly reason that I rarely show. It’s a win-win situation. I once showed up at the wedding of someone’s son even though I had never met the son, just because I felt obligated to make an exception. Naturally I was the first one to leave after the meal was over and upon arrival to this outdoor wedding in 95 degree temperature in the sun no less, I just picked up my lawn chair and walked over and sat in the only shady spot in the whole place. While others frantically fanned themselves I kind of fell half asleep in relative comfort. Always improvise. So I can make exceptions if I really like the people. It’s a question of kindness vs independence.
If one wants to get along well with others just learn to love diversity. In practice, that’s the best peace plan and one which Obama has used all his life to generate good will with so many diverse groups across the globe. Ironically, that hasn’t got him into good stead with those who don’t like particular groups. It always meant a lot to me in my productive years when some student, different from me in some distinct way—for example being black during the tumultuous days of the 60’s—when they would suddenly comment: “I didn’t know I could have the kind of conversations we have with someone who is white”. “Good” I would always reply, “now if you can learn to reach others different from yourself via race, culture, religion, social class, etc. then you will do well in life.” Not to mention how much more contented they will be without so many people of varied sorts to dislike.
If I was not going to busy myself with others in my retirement years, then what would I do to replace them? For me, the choice was nature, reading, watching DVD course by outstanding Professors on various topics, cooking, endless wanderings in both nature and city neighborhoods (within limits), and using the stillness of post midnight hours to fully appreciate the long journey I have had through life—using the quietude to remember some of the best interactions I have had with a wide assortment of people. To live this long, still be in decent health, and while mentally on the decline, still functional enough to comprehend the complexities of most things--albeit I have endless trouble remembering names or recalling specific words at times, is a blessing. Rather than stutter or awkwardly pause I have gotten into the habit of routinely greeting people I know with: “How are you my good friend?”. They are a good friend, but the name may escape me for the moment. If they want to be remembered by name I will have to give them a call back later. When people ask my name I often tell them, but offer that I also answer to “Hey you”. That seems to be my nickname, although early on I thought my name was ‘Jesus Christ’ since I would say something or do something and the person would say, “Jesus Christ, what did you just do (or say)?”. Others, to this day, reading something in one of my musings, may still refer to me with that name. Fortunately for me, I guess, is that people are like cats, their curiosity gets the best of them and they suffer once again testing the waters to see what upsetting notions are buried within a harmlessly entitled musing.
In the end, of course we all die, and I am determined not to act poorly when the time comes. Naturally, I have no idea at what point I will have had enough and want to die. It is a tad silly to fear death. I haven’t been alive through almost all of evolutionary history and I can’t recall this ever being some sort of painful cross to bear. Death is kind of the price we pay for ever being lucky enough to have been born. I know plenty of people willingly suffer through endless operations and even decades of being essentially bedridden but my plans are to ensure that can never happen. Extended torture is not my lifestyle. My memory still cringes about when I was in a hospital room with a pastor who had a severe stroke and was completely paralyzed except for moving his eyes. Members of his congregation would come by and some really said ‘You are going to live longer. God is not through with you yet.” What kind of God are they praying to who would personally have micro control over the situation and sit there like a cat torturing a mouse and reserve for Himself when he was tired of the torture. If God were micro controlling everything there wouldn’t be any tragedies. Other animals don’t fear death because they know little about such a thing. They don’t lie awake nights petrified that some time they will die. Humans understand death and each human should have the right to decide when they have had enough. I suppose if others, based on their religious beliefs, think their beliefs should control when others die, then we will need to die by our own means when we are ready to die. Let them find someone else to practice their enforced torture on. None of my many pets spent any time at all suffering a drawn out painful/emotionally drawn out dying process. What kind of person would let himself or any pet go through the kind of torture not permitted for prisoners of war, as the means to die. If somebody really wants that, they should be entitled to it, but never force anyone else to choose that route. As far as I am concerned, the right to control our own dying process is a fundamental right all should have. Period.
Someone told me a while back that when I am dying I am going to wish I had immediate family or more close friends during the terminational process. If I do quite well enough with contentment when alone at this stage of my life, why would I need a lot of others around during my dying process? Everyone really dies alone, whether they have an audience or not. I had a neighbor once who I was fond of, dying from lung cancer. He spent many months struggling to get enough oxygen and finally ended up in a hospice all doped up so he wouldn’t feel pain or much of anything else either. His family insisted I come by on his final days to visit him—as if visiting a dying, totally out of it person, is visiting. For their sake I did, and had to suffer through such nonsense as “keep talking to him Reid, he can hear you, the sense of hearing is one of the last to go”. What tommyrot. Although nerve impulses from the ear still get to the brain, the parts of the brain which interpret the messages from the ear were totally out of it via drugs. Every time I have to be in a hospital I refuse visitors. I don’t find visitors, when I am not feeling well, soothing, I find it annoying and stressful. Why would I want to entertain at a time when I feel under the weather? I may be weird but not necessarily illogical when it comes to my own peace of mind. Plus there some people who are hardly tolerable when I am in the best of spirits, suppose they show up?
So here I find myself, at the beginning of the final laps in life, not knowing how long the laps, whether it will have a sudden ending, or whether I will pathetically and hopelessly, in some kind of grotesque and pitiful way, end up spending most of the lap crawling to the finish line. If you cross my path at this crawling point, put a rope around me and find the fastest way to get me to the finish line, or at least stomp me to death as some sort of mercy killing. On this note I will mercifully stop, fire the starting gun myself, then wend my way around in a circles once again for my last laps.
Say goodbye to Mrs. Calabash, wherever she is, for me. Younger people will not understand this last reference.
