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| MY BOYS AND I SWIMMING IN OKANAGAN LAKE LEFT - RIGHT AGES 47, 38, 71, 41 |
AGEISM. That prejudice or discrimination on the
grounds of a person’s age.
Factoid: 82% of
Americans 50 years and older say they have experienced prejudice, discrimination,
or stereotyping based on ageism (University of Michigan National Poll on
Healthy Aging, July 2020).
Factoid: “One
thing Americans agree on? Our
politicians are too old” (Chris Cillizza, CNN). American president, Joe Biden, is 79. Speaker, Nancy Pelosi is 82. Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer is
71. Mitch McConnell is 80. Donald Trump is 76. And how about across the sea? Queen Elizabeth
just died at 96. Her son, King Charles
III is 73.
Factoid: We are all suffering from ageism because all
of us are aging. And regarding
prejudice, I experience ageism all the time, never toward me, but instead
self-inflicted and self-professed by my aged peers toward themselves!
Well you know, Neil, now I’m getting on my aches
and pains just don’t ever go away … (a 74-year-old
relative who now blames her senior age on everything that goes awry in her
life).
No band needs a 70-year-old bass player … (an
81-year-old former bandmate who still wants to gig but has burnt just too many musical
bridges, not as a senior, but as a middle-ager).
When you’re old you become invisible … (a
very disgruntled 80-something former colleague, a superannuated English
Literature teacher who was never effervescent not even in his youth, at least
not in the years I worked alongside him).
I could go on and on but then I would be behaving like
that stereotypical old person who simply repeats himself repeats himself
repeats himself.
B.F. Skinner (American psychologist) said that for a
person to get old, that person just must act old. To get old then, a person can
simply be someone who always is complaining about an ache or pain, someone who always is wanting assistance or is always needing help in some physical regard (entering
and exiting a vehicle for example). Yes,
acting old will get you old. I shall
point out that Skinner was a behavior psychologist.
Another news feed I just read yesterday stated that
73% of our population holds biased attitudes towards older people. Really? DUH.
Of course, they do. Typically, there are
lots of older people who are literally slowing up those who are striving to thrive
on zoom-time. Just check out the queue
of old people on any senior shopping day, holding up the customer lines by
arguing over product prices, or buying exorbitant amounts of lottery tickets, by
counting their coins one-by-one as they delicately retrieve them from their
purses or pockets. Stereotypically,
these same fogies in the store are those who drive to the store, the whole trip
having their left turn-signal blinking and blinking and blinking.
But I am not writing this to demean or defeat old age,
I am writing this only to defy ageism on personal terms. I know such a mission cannot be accomplished
by reflecting on my past through the lens of romantic nostalgia. Yes, yes, yes, when I was a young man, I was
a social magnet and great fun to be around.
I was 6’1” and 185 pounds of muscle with sun-bleached hair and a California-baked
body. And blah blah blah I was
Adonis!
“Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you,”
said the baseball great, Leroy Satchel Paige.
I know that wallowing in reminiscence can only take me backward, providing
too easy an opportunity to live out my days in the wrong direction. Even just talking
about the good ol’ days is a stereotypical trait assigned to old people. I do not want to be that old guy who tells
stories about the high snowbanks and endless summers in the much better but
much harder times of yesteryear. Acting
old is getting old. Nope. I am not there
yet.
Hmmm. But I am
on my way.
As I age, I am suffering the conventional
maladies. I have a bad memory for
people’s names. To compensate or
accommodate myself in this regard I always resort to mnemonics. For example, if I meet a “Rose” I try to
encrypt an image of “Rose” doing something with her “nose.” This mnemonic something could range to
anything from Rose scratching to blowing or even picking her nose.
My eyesight is failing. In my middle-age I became far-sighted,
literally, not necessarily metaphorically.
Due to my farsightedness, my optometrist recommended mono-vision, the
employment of just one contact (reading) lens placed upon my dominant left
eye. To describe this I explain that if
one were to purchase a pair of reading glasses from a drugstore or anywhere
actually, and then just punch out the right lens before placing them on the
face, this is the look that I live on a dailies basis (pun intended).
Oftentimes I suffer mental fatigue. This is likely because I am always in
thought, and one of my recurring thoughts being existential dread. And I am convinced this is prompted not by my
age, but by my philosophical woolgathering of other things, including the
meaning of life (who does not want to know if a passion can become a source of
money), the purpose of religion (who wants this life to be is that all there
is), and the reasons for my going to the gym (unless one is an athlete
whose job depends upon strength, flexibility, and fitness, all others go to the
gym simply to look good). Note to self and to everyone: Evolutionary Psychology
suggests our only purpose for being is to procreate and continue the
species; therefore, going to the gym to look good is an innate drive to attract
a mate.
And oftentimes I suffer physical fatigue. Factoid: Though I now pound fewer miles on the road
than I used to -- In the ‘80s I ran ten miles a day; in the ‘90s I ran five
miles a day; now I am a fair weather runner, running just three miles or so
three times a week and only in summertime. However, the rest of my fitness regime I have
not reduced. I still lift weights five
days a week, and I take private martial arts lessons (Muay Thai) one day per
week. A couple times a week I am on the
street busking with my guitar, and I try to gig once every couple of months at
one of the local bars. Right now,
expressing all this recreational activity brings on an epiphany -- no wonder I
feel, at times, physically drained!
But alas, we shall see. I am still at that age that I am more than
willing to work as hard as I can for as long as I can. Factoid: Calculating my longevity factor through the
actuarial sciences, I am now beyond middle age, unless of course, I live another
seventy-one years!
At least now I no longer wonder what I will look like
when I get old. Other men of my ilk are either balding or pot-bellied or
both. My genetics has certainly favored
me in the male-pattern baldness department and my exercise regimen will keep my
belly flat.
Here are some personal facts: I know I will be six feet tall (I have lost
an inch somewhere). I know I will weigh
160 pounds (I have lost 25 pounds somewhere).
I know I will have a shock of platinum hair (I have lost my brown
hair), and I know I will not be dining at Swiss Chalet (I have not lost my
taste in downtown fine dining). I know
that I will not be quantum fit, but most certainly be close to super fit (I
will have a fitness addiction). I know
that I will place above the 95th percentile range within my age
group (I measure my body fat percentage on a regular basis). With authority, too, I can state that my
mental and physical fitness when measured against the age groups below me, still
have me hovering above the 90th percentile (I am full of bluster
such as this).
“Let’s hang on to what we’ve got” sang The
Four Seasons. Well, I want to hold
on to what I have got. I want to
continue doing the things I love to do.
Some of my closest friends who are retirees continually ask me when I
plan to retire. But I still love going
to work every day and hanging out with my colleagues and clients, while at the
same I still love leaving work every day to get to the gym or the park. B.F. Skinner (my favorite American
psychologist) thought that it was a mistake for people to retire at all! I tend
to agree with him specifically about me, but never about others. What others think, what others do, is others’
business.
I never shall deign to that middle-class misadventure called retirement. The world is still my demesne. I will do as I like for as long as I live.
Marching in
my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:
While out busking I met Luthier EMERSON, who just recently to Regina from Gravelbourg, SK.
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| BARON IN THE BELL TOWER |
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| SELF IN THE BELL TOWER |
*Please note
that we were not ringing that bell to celebrate the British legacies of colonialism
in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and elsewhere.
We were prompted only by Quasimodo curiosity and the pleasurable
tintinnabulation.
