A Quantum of Tranquility As You Age – Old School Resolutions for the New Year (2009) and the next -and the next, and the next…

2009 - A New Year with some Old School Resolutions for your Life in the Long Lane

Start off the new year (or your long life ahead) with this:
A Guide to the Good Life {The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy}. William B. Irvine (2009). Oxford University Press.

Why? Read on >>>>>>>>>>>>

So what did you do with your extra day? You know the little bonus of the past leap year? Remember? You and I got 366 days in 2008, but did the “extra” 24 hours help any in the bigger landscape of life? Did the year seem any different due to the extra 1440 minutes? And guess what? We all got an extra “second” added on this year too! How did that happen?

The world’s official timekeepers have added a “leap second” to the last day of the year on Wednesday, to help match clocks to the Earth’s slowing spin on its axis, which takes place at ever-changing rates affected by tides and other factors. The U.S. Naval Observatory, keeper of the Pentagon’s master clock, said it would add the extra second on Wednesday in coordination with the world’s atomic clocks at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC. That corresponds to 6:59:59 p.m. EST (23:59:59 GMT), when an extra second will tick by — the 24th to be added to UTC since 1972, when the practice began (from Reuters newswire – Dec. 30, 2008).

Woohoo! It’s magic; “they” just created more time. Well, one more second, anyway. Okay – I will admit I can’t even remember that extra day in February (2008); I have no idea what I did or if I added something “extra” to the quality of my life or even to someone else’s.

In fact, just realizing that the extra day – came and went – added to the existential angst of trying to take stock of the moments of life and to then refute the tick-tick-ticking away of life or in the sands that drop through the hourglass…even when they add an extra second to a year with an extra day.

One of my all-time favorite low/high points in despair and regret in the literature is found with the mental gymnastics of the tortured Macbeth:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

 Wow. Not even Dr. Phil could help this poor soul out of his labyrinth. But yet, the Shakespearean lines are razor-sharp and Macbeth’s anguish can be ours too. The tomorrows creep onward, and another birthday rolls around, and it seems there is no accounting for the minutes, the hours, the days, and weeks that flew by. The next thing you know all of that psychological immunity from aging – the morbidity and the mortality of it all – is at your doorstep – or sitting there in your inbox. I like the penultimate Twitter question: What are you doing?

For many it helps to ground the moment to a stop and actually write it out…but then comes then comes cold shock of wondering exactly that –
WHAT AM I DOING?

Old School = “wake up call” / New School = “Tweet call”

And as we catch our breath on our way to a dusty death, the yesterdays pile up along with the candles on your birthday cake. And so (as I call it) – The Fog of Aging – has rolled in and where are lighthouses? Where are the foghorns to help guide us along the long journey ahead? Our ship is in need some guidance for fear that we will crash upon the rocks or end up in some doldrums where the air is stagnant – and the sails collapsed without any hope.

2008. Another year (366 days worth) – and many more to follow – and with apologies to The Eagles – it is a life in the long lane ahead. Oh, and it’s fast too.

No doubt that…but I wonder what The Eagles meant by “They didn’t care they were just dyin’ to get off”? You could say they meant they just trying to exit the freeway as they were “lost”, but I think there was a play on words – “that they were just dying to ‘get off’” – as in sexually, financially, materialistically, psychotropically, all of the above – and more. Life is fast and in a hedonistic sense – one goal (philosophically speaking) could be the serial “getting off” – on whatever happens to be next in a line. The world is my oyster. Forget being the master of the universe – why not be the constant center of the universe? Well, that is possible in the minds of many people. The extra day in the leap year was another extra 24 hours to run the stop sign – with the hands off the steering wheel.

Or maybe it is time to slow down – and not to smell the damn roses, but rather to see more clearly what is right under our noses. I too – seek some sustenance. Getting tired of the constant buffet line and the soft parade (a la Jim Morrison),

            “All our lives we sweat and save, building for a shallow grave, Must be something else we say…”

            {which sounds a lot like The Verve’s – Bittersweet Symphony – “Trying to make ends meet, you’re a slave to the money then you die.”}

Yeah but what is that something else? And more importantly – so what?

Poor Jim Morrison didn’t wait around too long to find out as he exited the highway in 1971 at the age of 27. A life cut too short? Then think of Heath Ledger who died on January 22, 2008 – at the age of 28. And now compare that to our oldest living person, the 115-year-old Maria de Jesus of Portugal, who was born on September 10, 1893, according to the Gerontology Research Group.
<UPDATE: de Jesus died on Friday Jan. 2, 2009 shortly after posting this segment. De Jesus was 115 years and 114 days old. She had been listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest person. That title now falls to an American, 114-year-old Gertrude Baines, who lives in a Los Angeles nursing home. There are now only 82 women and nine men verified as being 110 or older, according to gerontologist Dr. Stephen Coles of the Gerontology Research Group at the University of California, Los Angeles.>

The question is whether it be 27 or 122 years old, what does it all signify to you? Full of sound and fury, but in the end – is it a tale told by an idiot?

If life is long, then how will we best understand, create, examine, and glean from the passing of moments – from one day to the next, from year to the next, from one decade to the next, to then suddenly – it is upon us – the end (and with all due respect to Aubrey de Grey and SENS – and Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near) and then when know the gut check found within the Kierkegaardian “earnestness of death.” And if you have the time near the end to contemplate, the core and visceral hammer comes down, its’ all too little and too late.

This time there ain’t no foolin’, no time outs; no replays, no rewinding. The sands have run out. The next thing you know you are listening to Mozart’s Requiem (Dies irae), or like Sol in the classic Solyent Green – with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6. No? Not your style?  Okay, perhaps more like Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, or Nirvana’s Breed, or the Deftones Change – whatever. As it all fades quickly and there is the flicker of realization – and regret – that it all happened too quickly – whether it was 28 or 115 years.

Check this out: The other night I was watching a show where Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey received Kennedy Center Honors at the 31st annual gala awards ceremony on December 7, 2008. The Kennedy Center Honors are America’s highest cultural honor. The Who are the only rock band to receive the award. Now this is the same rock group who proclaimed that in their generational moment – “hope I die, before I get old” – Well, guess what? They got fooled again, Peter Townshend is 63 and Roger Daltrey is 64. In their case, the magic bus is still rolling, but where did they time go? They got “old” real fast – and so are all of us.

   <<< than was then … this is now >>>>>> 

Macbeth’s brief candle and Hamlet’s mortal coil. Tempus fugit.

But with living in long lane – we can consider and heed the “reduce speed” signs and the “stop” signs to draw more from the essence and the marrow that is the here and the now. It was only “teenage wasteland” (see Baba O’Riley – The Who) – but could it turn into an “elder wasteland?” In any case, it is obvious that it will take a lot of effort in the land of MORE. Peter Whybrow (2005) has nailed it perfectly with his depiction of life in the fast lane: “American Mania” (with the insightful subtitle of “When More Is Not Enough.”) Or ponder this scathing indictment of our current state of affairs in the economic domain by Lewis Lapham (2008) who cuts through the horse manure of how we got into this mess in the first place,

Given any kind of choice in the matter, who among the faithful ever has preferred hard work to the fast shuffle and the artful dodge, the bird in the hand to the five in the bush? Ask any American what money means, and the respondent is an odds-on favorite to say it’s the soul of freedom and the proof of wisdom, that only if he or she had more of it the upgraded combination of numbers must open up the vault of Paradise (p. 7)

There is no question that financial security is a foundational goal for many Americans, especially into later life, but is it the singular and dominant significance of it all?

The question is: Does such a philosophical underpinnings exist for aging into the long lane? What do we have for counsel? Or what council shall we seek to determine if they have illumination and meaning to proffer in our day – and in our world. There is less around than you would think. And I hope you are not thinking that simply creating a “bucket list” (a list of  “things to do before I die”) like Edward and Carter (Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman) will suffice and serve as the antidote. No – this has to be deeper than a place to put the mop.

In a monumental book for our times, The Longevity Revolution (2008), Robert Butler, M.D. has written that,

“We need guidance in the new world of longevity, all the more so if we should succeed further in prolonging life. Aside from the thoughts of a handful of scholars and thinkers whose wisdom has come down to us through the ages, little in Western Literature exists to contribute to a systematic philosophy of the conduct of life in the later years” (p. 399).

And yet, there have been some attempts to do so with varying degrees of credibility and relevancy for the long lane of life. On one hand, you have the bewildering manual for the postmodern era delivered by Ken Wilber (2002), Boomeritis which attempts to provide a path out of the “disease of egocentrism and narcissism of the baby-boomer generation” and on the other you have the more academically grounded – and well-regarded work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1997) Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. And in between you have the significant contributions of John Kotre (1996) Outliving the Self: How We Live on in Future Generations; The Soul’s Code by James Hillman (1996); Prime Time: How Baby-Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America (2000); and Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness (2006) {I also highly recommend Happiness Is Overrated by Raymond Angelo Belliotti (2004)}. But in my opinion, Robert Butler’s assessment is still very much on target and we have little to go by in terms of a meaty and substantive philosophical foundation to guide our conduct, behavior, goals, and interactions in the second half of life (see Jung’s Modern Man in Search of Soul, 1933).

It is also true there are plenty of spiritual paths to choose from that have served humanity over the millennium ranging from the monotheistic Abrahamic religions to the Dharmic paths and the simple elegance of the wisdom found in the Tao Te Ching (for example, see William Martin’s [2000] new interpretation which offers “ancient advice for the second half of life.”)

Or one could consider the folksy wisdom found in the preacher/philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (see “Self-Reliance”) or the role of “Providence” (see Lloyd, 2008) as a guiding principle in human affairs. We could then dance with Leibniz to the tune of that we are in “the bests possible of all worlds” or instead jump on board with Voltaire and instead focus in on “cultivating our garden” (see also George Valliant’s [2002] “Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development”). On one hand, a lot of people believe that,

“…many of the central beliefs which have structured modern philosophical thought, and indirectly sustained modern lives, have been rejected or simply fallen away from consciousness. We no longer readily believe that the world was made for us, that our history tells a purposive story, that there is a ‘redemptive Hegelian history or universal Leibnizian cost-benefit analysis to show that it wall come out well enough in the end.’” (from Lloyd, 2008, p. 322)

But Lloyd (2008) wonders if this perspective has created a huge deficit in our ability to grasp and cope (both cognitively and emotionally) with the vagaries of life. She argued that,

“…lurking beneath modernity’s much celebrated mastery of Fortune is an incapacity to think coherently either about the necessities that frame human life or its uncontrollable contingencies” (p. 322).

“To think coherently.”

Good point…and I agree. Especially when it comes to the two certain things (I will leave out taxes) that we have difficulty with in terms of thinking coherently – even in the longevity revolution: TIME AND DEATH.

Okay, so let us get back to the potential for thinking coherently with our aging life (in the long lane) by examining some potential philosophical frameworks that could (potentially) assist us in the NEW YEAR – and beyond. I also want to put a premium on a perspective that includes guidance or both REASON and EMOTION in our human affairs and includes the entire LIFE COURSE (from womb to tomb; from birth until death). What I do not want to necessarily enter into the equation is the on-going mega-debate between the dogmatists and the skeptics over the epistemological concerns (see Musgrave, 1993) {although I do embrace a certain amount of Cartesian DOUBT). But I do want to include an approach that considers the flesh, the soul, the emotional, and the domain of reason into our search for a meaningful platform to guide us along the long voyage of life and for you to consider for viable a set of New Year Resolutions (see Dupre, 2004; Gottlieb, 2000; Porter, 2004; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999). But as you shall soon see this proposed set has some Old School originations and I have found the wisdom, the practicality, and the relevancy within these perspectives to be refreshingly modern – and timeless – especially in the context of an aging society – and for the aging adult. My goal is here is not to convert, cajole, or to push this set old school guidelines as THE holy grail to address all of the needs for a compass into the later years, rather the goal is to have you consider it for the purpose of roguish discovery and guidance. You be the judge. But at least learn more – and uncover more.

My first encounter with this set of guidelines was an accidental happening. I was teaching high school biology (back in the 1980’s) and went to school library to line up some books for the students to read and I discovered a book (misplaced?) within the section on biology. It was definitely an old school publication: Vol. 12 Lucretius, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius – Great Books of the Western World (Robert Maynard Hutchins, Editor in Chief) The University of Chicago – Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. – 1952.

1952? Shitfire! That was a copyright date pre-Scott Wright (I call them premees).  I was blown away. In fact, that book kicked my ass into a higher gear so much that I knew I wanted to go back to school and go up the ladder and pursue that thing they call a “Doctor of Philosophy” (although I much later learned it turned out to be more a Doctor of Empiricism – but more on that later on). I still have the notebook where I jotted down chunks of sayings and excerpts from the book:

A sure term of life is fixed for mortals and death cannot be shunned, but meet it we must. Moreover we are ever engaged, ever involved in the same pursuits, and no new pleasure is struck by living on; but whilst we crave is wanting, it seems to transcend all the rest; then, when it is gotten, we crave something else, and ever does the thirst of life possesses us, as we gape for it open-mouthed. Quite doubtful it is what fortune the future will carry with it or what change will bring us or what end is at hand. Nor by prolonging life do we take one tittle from the time past in death nor can fret away, whereby we may haply be a less long time in the condition of the dead. Therefore you may complete as many generations as you please during your life; none the less however will that everlasting death awaits you; and for no less long a time will he no more in being, who beginning today had ended his life, than the man who had died many months and years ago (Book Three – 1076 – p. 44).

            And I do remember thinking, “Damn, that’s a kick in the crotch. Wow, no Dionysian party-time in this philosophical turd-in-the-punch bowl approach to life. Stoicism is the harsh light of the day with the curtains suddenly pulled back and bursting into your room early in the morning, in tandem with the banging of a wash tub with a hammer, after a bad hangover due to excessive tequila and one toke over the line, along with beef jerky, cheap cigars, and playing poker for seven hours until three in the morning, but Lucretius is right.”

            Then I moved into the writings of Marcus Aurelius.

Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is a flux,
and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction,
and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing of devoid of judgment.
And to say all is a word, everything which belongs to the body is a
stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream
and vapour, and life is a warfare and a stranger’s sojourn, and after-fame oblivion.
—Marcus Aurelius,  Meditations Book II(17)

            Well, by then I was hooked and intrigued by the blunt observations of such a man – Who was this person? How did he come to form such perspectives? He writes with a calm wisdom and he has asked us to embrace what is there before us. It is amor fati. Was he a precursor to Nietzsche? And look at this, he sounds like he was like some Zen master. A Jedi Knight of the Roman Empire. What is the flesh? What is breath? Nothing. Stay centered and grounded. Stay present in the moment, like Michael (Robert De Niro) in The Deer Hunter, ‘this is this, this ain’t somethin’ else, this is this.’

                            

Okay from Michael back to Marcus and consider thus:

Thou art an old man, no longer let this be a slave, no longer be pulled by strings like a puppet to unsocial movements, no longer be either dissatisfied with thy present lot, or shrink from the future…

 and back to Michael as he lifts the rifle barrel (The Deer Hunter) at the last second and aims high deliberately missing the trophy deer.

               Okay! Okay. Time to finally accept it, it’s just the way that it is –

            And I remembered that Santayana had written about his three selected philosophical poets with Goethe as the poet of life, Lucretius as the poet of nature, and Dante as the poet of salvation. But became more convinced that Santayana had overlooked Marcus Aurelius as the poet of existence.

These two things then thou must bear in mind; the one, that all things from eternity are of life forms and come around in a circle, and that it makes no difference whether a man shall see the same things during a hundred years or two hundred, or an infinite time; and the second, that the longest liver and he who will die soonest lose just the same. For the present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and that a man cannot lose a thing if he has it not (p.258).

Even to this day, I find it hard to see this person as being the emperor of the Roman Empire – a philosopher-king! He was another Zen master, a systems theorist, a gerontologist of sorts. He seemed to value the essence of life in the time that we have. He is another one for amor fati, destiny, fate, piety. And ironically, I remember that I had a book stolen from me and it was “The Emperor’s Handbook (Marcus Aurelius) by C. Scot Hicks and David V. Hicks (2002) and yes, how ironic, that at first I was pissed off and ready to kill (oops no emotional intelligence) and then I thought old Marcus would look at me and just shake his head in disappointment (Did you learn anything, my son?). Right, I really should let go of it. Is it really that important to me now? Well, not the book, but the message still is. But here is one thing I wonder about – when did the emperor have time to write all this stuff down anyway? –

Consider that before long thou wilt be nobody and nowhere, nor will any of the things exist which thou now seest, nor any of those who are now living. For all things are formed by nature to change and be turned and to perish in order that other things in continuous succession may exist (p. 309).

            And since then many other publications have come along to fill in the gaps and extend the interpretations thereof. For example, one book I now own goes further back in publication years to 1940: The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers (A Modern Library Giant). And those readings built a bridge over to Counsels and Maxims, by Arthur Schopenhauer – That pessimistic old fart? Really?

            Please go to The Ages of Life, and read of his thoughts on the life course,

From the point of view we have been taking up until now, life may be compared to a piece of embroidery, of which, during the first half of his time, a man gets a sight of the right side, and during the second half, of the wrong. The wrong side is not so pretty as the right, but it is more instructive; it shows the way in which the threads have been worked together.

            Wow ! Not too bad. I like the imagery. Good one. Okay, what else you got? -

From the standpoint of youth, life seems to stretch away into an endless future; from the standpoint of old age, to go back but a little way into the past; so that, at the beginning, life presents us with a picture in which the objects appear a great way off, as though we had reversed our telescope; while in the end everything seems so close. To see how short life is, a man must have grown old, that is to say, he must have lived long.

Time itself seems to go at a much slower pace when we are young; so that not only is the first quarter of life the happiest, it is also the longest of all; it leaves more memories behind it. If a man was put to it, he could tell you more out of the first quarter of his life than out of two of the remaining periods. Nay, in the spring of life, as in the spring of the year, the days reach a length that is positively tiresome; but in the autumn, whether of the year or of life, though they are short, they are more genial and uniform.

But why is it that to an old man his past life appears so short? For this reason: his memory is short; and so he fancies that his life has been short too. He no longer remembers the insignificant parts of it, and much that was unpleasant is now forgotten; how little, then, there is left! For, in general, a man’s memory is as imperfect as his intellect; and he must make a practice of reflecting upon the lessons he has learned and the events he has experienced, if he does not want them both to sink gradually into the gulf of oblivion. Now, we are unaccustomed to reflect upon matters of no importance, or, as a rule, upon things that we have found disagreeable, and yet that is necessary if the memory of them is to be preserved. But the class of things that may be called insignificant is continually receiving fresh additions: much that wears an air of importance at first, gradually becomes of no consequence at all from the fact of its frequent repetition; so that in the end we actually lose count of the number of times it happens. Hence we are better able to remember the events of our early years than of our later years. The longer we live, the fewer are the things that we can call important or significant enough to deserve further consideration, and by this alone can they be fixed in the memory; in other words, they are forgotten as soon as they are past. Thus it is that time runs on, leaving always fewer traces of its passage.

And from there another path was directed to the weaving, the pastiche, the mimesis, the medley, the quilt, the bricolage , the mosaic, the fabric, the text of Carl Jung from his book – Memories, Dreams, Reflections -

Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost the sense of something that lives and endures beneath the eternal flux. What we see is blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains.

Hmm, interesting outlook. Well, we have covered a lot here. Time to digest and ferment.

I will list a few more references for you to consider and sink your teeth and your brain cells into. I believe that these books could serve as potential lighthouses as you navigate the long voyage ahead.

Epictetus – The Art of Living: The Classic Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness. A New Interpretation by Sharon Lebell (1995). HarperCollins, San Francisco, CA.

Seneca – On the Shortness of Life (Life is Long if You Know How to Use It). Penguin Books. Great Ideas. Translated by C.D.N. Costa (1997). New York.

Stoicism and Emotion. Margaret R. Graver. (2007). The University of Chicago Press.

A Guide to the Good Life {The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy}. William B. Irvine (2009). Oxford University Press.

<<<<<<<<< HIGHLY RECOMMEND !

Enjoy – and let me know what you think – or feel – about these books and guidelines.

Best wishes on your New Year’s Resolutions, but please consider resolutions for your entire life – remember, it used to be:

Life is short – play hard. Now it is >>>   Life is long – play smart. 

And to play smart – some old school philosophy is looking pretty good – for today and this year, and then next, and the next….

Thanks, Scott D. Wright

The Rise of Supercentenarians: Kairos, Not Chronos

The Rise of Supercentenarians: Kairos, Not Chronos

Altogether the interval is small between birth and death…look to the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time which is before thee, another boundless space. In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations? 
Marcus Aurelius (175 AD)

By definition, you live with longevity for a very long time.
Aubrey de Grey (2005 AD)

Longevity is not a zero-sum game.
Michael Kinsley (2008 AD)

On November 26, 2008, Edna Scott Parker died in Shelbyville, Indiana.

And on that day many more people had ceased to exist on the same day due to various “causes of death.” And the next day – and the next. We see the daily reminders in the obituaries, in the headlines of newspapers, and across the multitude of web sites. And once again, we are reminded of what Dante (and T.S. Eliot) had alluded to with their chilling lines, “I had not thought death had undone so many.” Death is the great reminder about our fate and as the inevitable outcome of living. But Edna Scott Parker – as one of the many – was also someone special. She was the longest living person…alive…on the planet – as of November 26, 2008. She had lived a remarkable 115 years and 220 days. And now (as of this posting on Dec. 13, 2008) the record (verified) belongs to Maria de Jesus dos Santos (born September 10, 1893).

The rise of the supercentenarians has also run parallel with the increase in interest and in publications of “living longer” and as a result, written works on aging are no longer the exclusive province of scientific journals and massive academic tomes as the sheer number of books found on the shelves of both national chain and local bookstores that address the physical, social, and psychological dimensions of life in the long lane. Whether it is about Blue Zones, or about medical tourism, or retirement “hot spots,” both scientists and lay people alike still appear to be in search of the Holy Grail and the fountain of youth – and hopefully both at the same site.

Where to begin to understand our obsession with living longer? Where did the path begin? And where is the wisdom for our aging experience and for our time regardless if life be measured in three days or three generations? (See the epigram of Marcus Aurelius at the beginning of this article).

We could begin with mythological characters, The Three Fates, who have their respective appointed duties to perform where life is woven by Clotho, measured by Lachesis and Atropos cuts the thread of life. Given our contemporary situation, it appears that Lachesis is in need of having her job description upgraded. Or we could begin with one of the plays of Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus.Or move forward the writings of Marcus Aurelius in his “Meditations” where one will find an interesting array of insights about the processes of aging embedded in a philosophical stance of Stoicism.  In Meditations is the sense of proportion to life regardless of years alive or time spent and it offers solace to those who question the significance of less or more time in life.

We could also find historical nuggets in Tim Parkin’s book, Old Age in the Roman World: A Cultural and Social History or Moog and Schäfer’s article, “Joannes Stobaios, ‘On Old Age’: An Important Source for the History of Gerontology” which also examines Cicero’s well-known text “On Old Age” (Cato maior de senectute) as well.

Leap frogging ahead in time, there was the curious 1921 publication by Sanford Bennett Dodd, Old Age: Its Cause and Prevention which appears to be a provocative precursor to the Jack LaLanne school for living well into the later years. Dodd, who at the age of fifty, claimed to have physically completely broken down but then “reversed” his aging process through a regimen of exercise and diet, which matched the fabled miracle of Faust by changing an old body into a new one. It relates to another story of reversing aging by Mircea Eliade, Youth Without Youth, ^recently made into a movie by Francis Ford Coppola (see my other blog posting on this topic).

But back to senescence in the other direction. There was G. Stanley Hall’s (1922) Senescence: The Last Half of Life and another book, titled Old Age: The Major Involution: The Physiology and Pathology of the Aging Process (1930).

Or we could consult Carl Jung’s (1933) wonderful chapter, “The Stages of Life” in Modern Man In Search of Soul. Moving forward along the path, we could also seek guidance in Ageing, the Biology of Senescence by Alex Comfort (1964) or the deeper reflections of Simon de Beauvoir, (1972) in her book, The Coming of Age Old Age.

We could then move onward to the book, Aging and Mental Health: Positive Psychosocial Approaches (1973) by Robert N. Butler and Myrna I. Lewis, and marvel at cover of that book where the great Russian novelist Leo Tolsoi is pictured telling stories to his grandchildren. We could explore the textured dimensions of aging captured in The Psychology of Adult Development and Aging (1973) edited by Carl Eisdorfer and M. Powell Lawton and then continue on to rediscover the vade mecum of aging (and Pulitzer Prize winning book) by Robert Butler, Why Survive? Being Old in America (1975).

 In the following year, A Good Age by Alex Comfort (1976).  Then into the 1980s with the edited book by Alan Pifer and Lydia Bronte (1986), Our Aging Society: Paradox and Promise that was a gold mine of collected writings capturing both the benefits and challenges of an increasing life expectancy. Then into the 1990s with a flurry of distinct publications such as Thomas R. Cole’s 1992, The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging in America. Another lighthouse beacon along the way was The New Aging: Politics and Change in America (1992) by Fernando Torres-Gil. Traveling along the chronological grey line again to Betty Friedan’s (1993) The Fountain of Age who offered a revolutionary interpretation of based on her personal aging experiences and with other’s insights from gerontological research to engage in some effective myth busting. And then along the journey again with Leonard Hayflick’s (1994) How and Why We Age who wisely suggested that many ethical dilemmas would have to be addressed before engaging in lofty scientific goals and tampering with the clocks that govern aging. The hourglass as half empty was further advanced with Jean Amery’s (1994) unbearable-heaviness-of-being publication, On Aging: Revolt and Resignation, who summarized it all thusly: “aging is an incurable sickness.”

And the pendulum would swing back to the unending colorful birthday balloons of Gail Sheehy’s (1995) New Passages: Mapping Your Life Across Time. Then there was the force field of integration economics combined with the findings of cognitive psychology and evolutionary biology of Richard Posner’s, Aging and Old Age. The decade closed with a book by Theodore Roszak (1998)“America the Wise: the Longevity Revolution and the True Wealth of Nations” and then later expanded and revised to be published again in 2001 under the title of Longevity Revolution: As Boomers Become Elders.

But wait five minutes and the weather changes to overcast skies with Peter G. Peterson’s (1999) Gray Dawn: How the Coming Age Wave Will Transform America and the World.  But it is springtime again with the optimistic Age Power: How the 21st Century Will Be Ruled by the New Old (1999) by Ken Dychtwald.  And then there is the buzz-kill-but-needed-pragmatics of The Quest for Immortality: Science at the Frontiers of Aging (2001) by S. Jay Olshansky and Bruce Carnes. Then to the various levels of exploration on longevity into the 21^st century such as landmark research of George Vaillant and captured in his book, Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life and Longevity: The Biology and Demography of Life Span by J. R. Carey. The cognitive and psychological perspectives of Positive Aging (2005) by Robert D. Hill and then Aging: The Paradox of Life by Robin Holliday (2007). Then outward to the macro-level with Challenges of an Aging Society: Ethical Dilemmas, Political Issues edited by Rachel A. Pruchno and Michael A. Smyer (2007).

As we draw near to much needed rest area on our journey, we can learn from a medical doctors sage advice with Sherwin B. Nuland’s (2007) The Art of Aging: A Doctor’s Prescription for Well-being or learn about the never-ending story, Ending Aging:  The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime by Aubrey de Grey and Michael Rae (2007) (and see my blog posting on 2008 Aging Book of the Year Awards). We could review the most up-to-date theoretical perspectives on human longevity with The Biology of Human Longevity: Inflammation, Nutrition, and Aging in the Evolution of the Life Spans by Caleb Finch (2007) or take in the complete vista at the overlook, a four-volume set, titled appropriately enough, Ageing, compiled by Susan A. McDaniel. And we can top it all of with Robert Butler’s (2008), The Longevity Revolution (who offers an interesting term of “shortgevity”).

But I wonder if all the attention to longevity has eclipsed the focus on how to live better with the years that we have – or hope for. While the thread of life may keep getting longer for most of us, what do all of the threads mean? Do they all come together to create something significant – or meaningful? I think Michael Kinsley has come close to examining my concern via a recent issue of The New Yorker. There he considered that the extending of life expectancy (“Mine is Longer than Yours”) and the resulting (and looming?) promise of increased longevity is fast becoming the last big sweepstakes (not counting the escaping of death itself) for the largest generation in history. Kinsley quipped that life offers several rounds to go through and there are many who are successful in midlife but were losers in the high school years. But the last chapter of life (the third round) may be bonanza or disaster as well, but yet while some people may win both rounds, or even all three, all of us will cross that “invisible line at some point.”

And if we all get to look forward to a longer life, there are some who worry that we are not seeing the bad news in the “careful what you wish for” side of the coin.  For example, Charles Mann wrote a provocative piece in the The Atlantic, “The Coming Death Shortage”, whose view is that increased longevity is akin to a cruel joke with blowback and negative consequences for subsequent generations, thus the subtitle, “Why the longevity boom will make us sorry to be alive.” The message in Mann’s article helps to keep us honest in our candy-coated dreams in the era of longevity. Between the pendulum swinging from doom and gloom to prosperity and fulfillment with aging baby boomers, I do hope there is also the middle path.

It’s not so much that we should modify the Hippocratic aphorism of “Ars longa, vita brevis” to “Ars longa, vita longa” rather; we should focus less on calibrating the chronos, and try more to cultivate the kairos.

Where is the discussion of the quality of life in the increasing number of years of life?

To be continued…for a long time.

Iconoclastically yours, 

Scott D. Wright