Giving Up the Little Things

It’s like a plague (okay, a bit exaggerated, perhaps) that accompanies old age. A creeping, always justified excuse for slowing down and doing less. A self-congratulatory attitude that says: “I’ve paid my dues and now I’m owed some quiet time.” The self-assured argument that you no longer have to do all those meaningless tasks you were assigned early on in life and have been dutifully fulfilling ever since.

Now, you get to choose what you want to do, feel like doing, and damn it, are going to do or not do. And if you don’t want to do________ (fill in the blank here) then you don’t have to. You’ve earned your right to rest. At least, that’s the mindset that often comes creeping into that tired old brain of yours (or should I say, ours.)

The trouble with this self-fulfilling prophesy is that behind the aforementioned righteous rational lies a fatal flaw that can slowly but most assuredly rob you of the blessings of life. The truth is that it’s the little things that mean a lot, especially later on in life. To eliminate them is only to quicken the pace of an early demise or, at the very least, heighten needless anxiety about ‘the little things.’

I’ve seen it happen over and over again; with my parent’s, other friend’s parents and now (under the glow of my twilight years) some folks around me. It’s never seen as giving up. But rather, an embracing of doing less and not replacing that vacuum with something else worthwhile. Cutting back and emptying that repository of memories and not replacing it with anything new.

So, slowly but surely, the exercising slows down and finally stops. Travel becomes too clogged with uncertainty, driving at night is uncomfortable and our ‘own bed’ takes on a new importance. Our old familiar workplace has changed so much we don’t recognize it from when we first started in the business. Politics remains the same and we stop listening to the facts presented and only focus on the style of dress and how ‘believable’ our favorite candidate seems. If we still care at all.

All those morsels in our lives that made it a comfortable pattern of behavior are gradually lost or let go. Now we have more and more of less and less in our lives. The problem with this new scenario is that the vacuum never remains empty. Instead, it is filled with doubt and confusion and uncertainty of the new, ever evolving world all around us.

I can pin-point almost to the year when my friend’s parents stop living in the present. Their eldest was going off to college in the big city and they knew in their heart of hearts that their future was not going to be a repeat of their past.

It was going to be a different world (as seen through their children’s eyes) and they consciously or subconsciously decided to remain in ‘their’ own little world which is what they did. Gradually as the world changed around them, it became harder and harder for them to recognize the old from the new. Their world was becoming less and less like that of their kids. They found it harder and harder to relate to their children’s cares and concerns. The little, inconsequential things, took on new meaning and importance. Their kids urged them to ‘get out of the house’ and into the real world but they refused.

They’d become captives within their own self-made capsule of existence. Unfortunately, along with this isolation came confusion and concern about the myriads of changes all around them. Nothing seemed like it had been before. They felt lost and confused and thus clung to the old familiar at the expense of the new and present.

It’s a trap that’s easy to fall into without a conscious effort to stay informed, updated and involved with ‘skin in the game.’ Not an easy task but one that is critical to living a fulfilling life.

As mentioned so often before, at this stage of the game, ‘health is wealth.’ The secret sauce of staying alive and conscious to the world around us is to stay active in mind and body alike. The options and opportunities are endless and each one of them paves the way for a more satisfying and fulfilling life.

We only get one chance at this journey through life, why not live it to the fullest and take a break afterwards in eternity.

Paradigms

Henry Miller, the avant-garde, bohemian writer and activist said it best:

“If at eighty you’re not a cripple or an invalid, if you have your health, if you still enjoy a good walk, a good meal (with all the trimmings), if you can sleep without first taking a pill, if birds and flowers, mountains and sea still inspire you, you are a most fortunate individual and you should get down on your knees morning and night and thank the good Lord for his savin’ and keepin’ power.”

Henry Miller probably didn’t know at the time that he could have been talking about the paradigm of growing older today when he made that statement back in the sixties.

In science and philosophy, a paradigm is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitutes legitimate contributions to a field. And the fields are endless.

Paradigms are happening all around us and now at a faster pace than ever before. Even the idea of the aging process has evolved. The old paradigm that defined the last phase in a person’s life has changed how we look at old age.

Becoming a senior isn’t what it used to be. The old ideas of retiring and waiting for the inevitable are now a thing of the past for many older folks. It also means they’re old enough to see the power of paradigms happening all around them…all of the time, but especially now in the time of the pandemic.

Back in the eighties, Joel Baker, a local author out of Burnsville, Minnesota made quite a name for himself writing several books about the phenomena of paradigms. I was reminded of that recently when I watched a fascinating documentary on comic books.

Marvel and DC Comics ruled the world of comic books for decades. Their stable of cartoon characters hadn’t changed much over the years. It wasn’t until the early 1990s, when radical change came knocking on their corporate doors. From their talent pool arose a group of very unhappy artists who were chaffing at the bit to create new action figures and colorful characters to match their fertile imaginations. The group broke away from Marvel and DC Comics and formed their own organization under the banner of Image books. They totally upended the world of comic books.

Other examples of shifting paradigms abound all around us:

In the past, if a person wanted to stay overnight someplace, they had the choice of hotels, motels, and resorts. The lodgings came in all shapes and sizes but the premise was pretty much the same. They had rooms to rent; with or without amenities and the competition was limited.

Then two guys got this crazy idea that perhaps there were people who were willing to rent their rooms out to perfect strangers and a whole new lodging industry sprang up seemingly overnight. Now any world traveler can couch surf anyplace on the planet and never step into a hotel ever again. Now Airbnb, VRBO, and other facsimiles crowd the short-term lodging market.

Then there was Yellow cab, Super Shuttle and local, regional, and national cab companies that dominated the shuttle business. They had the market sewn up since the advent of the automobile. Once again, a couple of folks thought that private transportation might be an attractive alternative to the fixed high rates charged by most cab companies and shuttle services. Hence, Uber and Lyft came about and changed the industry forever.

At one time, there were six major publishing houses; each with many smaller imprints for specialized subject matter. Many of these publishing titans had been around for more than a hundred years. Their business model hadn’t changed since the mid-to-late-1800s.

Those six houses have now shrunk to three or four with more consolidation taking place every day. Electronic publishing and the new world of Print-on-Demand has turned the old publishing model on its head. Minimum print runs are a thing of the past and the internet has broadened the marketplace to include the entire planet.

Broadcast television made its debut in the United States in the late 1940s and gained a strong foothold in American consciousness in the early 1950s. That broadcast model/formula remained stable until the advent of cable television in the mid-1980s. Then, just as television had usurped much of the power of the movies, cable television disrupted the power of the major networks.

From there it was off to the races with the advent of DVDs and home entertainment crowding into the movie/ television business. CDs replaced LPs. Eventually computer technology allowed streaming content on multiple platforms to replace much of the DVD business model and the broadcast influence of the networks and cable channels.

The examples of paradigms disrupting the ‘tried and true’ procedures and processes continue at an ever-quickening pace. It’ll be up to my children and grandchildren to embrace and adjust to the changes swirling around us. For me, it’s an excuse to reflect, smile, and mostly watch from the sidelines. On a more personal level, it means the old adage that I grew up with of ‘retire and wait to die’ has now been replaced by ‘retire and now what?’

Following Henry Miller’s advice, I’d like to reach my eighties in good shape and still writing. It’s been one heck of a wonderful run thus far. I can only imagine what is in store for my grandchildren as they maneuver their way through life in the future. I’d like to stick around for a while to watch them do just that.