My older son, Patrick [the famous chess Grandmaster], and
his wife, Diana Schneider, started a charitable fund several years ago. They raise money by putting on an annual
conference that business people pay to attend and they distribute the funds
they raise to worthy educational projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, where
they live. I have from time to time
mentioned University Scholarships for South African Students, a charitable 501(c)(3)
fund which I started to help Black students to attend historically Black
universities in South Africa. I think
Patrick and Diana have raised more in the several years they have been running
their conference than I managed to raise for USSAS in a quarter of a century.
This put me in mind of something once said to me by my
younger son, Tobias. Tobias is not only
a brilliant legal scholar. He is also in
spectacular shape. When I see him and
give him a parental embrace, I feel as though I were hugging a tree. He works out at gyms wherever he is. Eight years ago, when Susie and I moved to
Chapel Hill, I started going each morning to the nearby Wellness Center, where
I would walk for a half hour on the treadmill, slowly increasing the speed and
raising the angle at which I was “climbing.”
Like as not, right next to me would be a trim young man or woman running
full tilt at an even greater angle. When
I mentioned this to Tobias one day, he said, “Dad, there is always going to be
someone faster or stronger than you. You
must concentrate on your personal best.” That makes me feel better when I compare my rather
feeble fund-raising with Patrick and Diana’s much more spectacular success.
I had occasion this morning to call up Tobias’ wise words
yet again. My standard morning walk here
in Paris takes me along the quais on the Left Bank, a favored route for
runners. There are always dozens of men
and women pounding past me, some wearing shirts with the message “Finisher in
20k Race” and the like. That does not
bother me. I never liked to run even
when I was a young man, so I just stand aside and let them breeze past me. But this morning a young woman in high heels,
hurrying to work passed me, and that sort of depressed me. So I bethought myself of Tobias’ wise words,
and concentrated on my personal best.
Of course, at my age, even that has slipped somewhat. My daily walk in Chapel Hill used to take me
exactly one hour, but now it takes an hour and twelve minutes. I have, as they say in baseball, lost a few
steps. I imagine that when I am ninety
it will take me an hour and a half or more.
I will cling to Tobias’ wisdom.
7 comments:
Professor Wolff,
You're in great shape. I'm 70 and women in high heels pass me all the time, even though, like you, I walk every day.
Our noticing these changes seems to come in quanta rather than waves. At 6'5", I have very long legs, and I wasn't used to people passing me. Then one day I suddenly realized that nearly everybody was passing me. It must have been coming on gradually, but I didn't see it. There's also an Einsteinian element. Time must move more slowly as we get older, because it seems like we're moving at the same speed we always did, until we see our movement in comparison to someone else or to the hands of a watch. (That would be a "vintage watch," when they still had hands. Do toddlers still learn to "tell time?"). Maybe it's that our subjective perception of time stems from the speed of motion of our bodies.
Ah, you tall ones. I was 5'9 in my prime, and now, horribile dictu, I am 5' 6 1/2!
Tom Cathcart,
I have a clock for a superego, so I never needed to look at others or at a watch to see that I was moving more slowly as I got older. That internal clock, which never lets up nor lets me relax much, makes me aware that I'm slower now.
Professor Wolff,
I guess that your friend Kant had a clock for superego too, so maybe Kant and I will get along well.
Interesting that as we get older, we seem to get more interested in phenomenology!! (Of what it's like to get old.) I don't remember thinking much about what it's like to be young.
Indeed, he was so punctual with his daily walk that the people of Konigsberg set their clocks by him. The one day he was late was the day a copy of Rousseau's EMILE arrived.
When we're young, we assume that the way we are is "natural": how it feels to get old is a surprise and thus, we pay attention to it as we do to any break in the routine, be it pleasant (a vacation) or unpleasant (illness or pain, etc.).
Post a Comment