I think I mentioned that Susie and I are going to Paris at the end of this month and that we have decided to sell our apartment. Happily for us, a former renter is buying it and she plans to let us rent it from time to time, even though I warned her that I would be bringing home my complete 40 volume set of the works of Marx and Engels in German. For the past week or so I have been absorbed in assembling all of the documents I need for the Parisian notaire. A notaire in France is, as I understand these things, a lawyer who handles various legal and financial transactions but is not certified to argue in court. For that you need an avocat.
As I have been fussing with files of documents going back to
when we purchased the apartment in 2004, I was struck again by the effect that
aging has on me. Physically, of course, I am not the man I once was and even when I
was I was not that hot, but that is not what I find most striking. Rather, it
is the fact that although my mind is as clear as it ever was it just takes me a
lot longer to do things and I can no longer do many things at the same time, as
I once could.
I think back to the seven years I spent at Columbia
University from 1964 to 1971. I was 30 when I started there and 37 when I left.
During those seven years, in addition to carrying the not very heavy Columbia
teaching load and other duties, I also taught summer school three times, I
taught extra courses during term time at City College (twice), Barnard, City
University, and Hunter College, I co-authored one little book, wrote four
others, edited eight books, and in the latter years shared in the caring for
two little boys, all while going to an analyst on the Upper East Side three or
four times a week. The weird thing is that I do not recall feeling pressured or
burdened by all of this.
Meanwhile, I find myself brooding constantly about the
incipient fascism I see growing up around me in the land of the free and the
home of the brave. I will try to say something about that in the next few days
even though there is obviously next to nothing I can do about it.
11 comments:
We all have less energy as we get older.
I just got back from buying bread at the vegan shop (I don't drive). It now takes me half an hour each way and 20 years ago when I arrived at this neighborhood it took me 20 minutes. I bet I could have done it in 15 minutes or less when I was 18. I used to be able to go to the supermarket and buy bread on my way back, but now I can't carry the bread and the groceries together.
That's physical energy, you say, but physical energy translates into mental energy. I lack the energy to learn a new foreign language or to take up a subject I've never studied, say, some abstruse form of mathematics. I once could read all night, but now my eyes tire after half an hour of reading any difficult book. That's both physical (I have glaucoma and cataracts) and mental.
Is my mind as clear as it ever was? Maybe as clear, but not as rapid and as sharp. I'm fairly sure that if I were to take the SAT's tomorrow, I'd score lower than I did
57 years ago.
I recently realized that I was at the age (76) where falling could be a big deal so I finally broke down and spent several hundred dollars on orchard ladders for uneven ground instead of making do with step ladders. I was surprised at the difference they make.
Amen. I'm rapidly loosing both physical and mental energy. Physically I have aches and pains in places I never knew I had. Mentally, I just get tired or distracted and wind up playing a lot of games of spider solitaire. I don't read philosophy anymore--too demanding. Now it's mainly history and literature--all in an effort to put my head into some kind of intellectual sand and pretend that the apparent march into fascism isn't happening.
When I say that my mind is as clear as ever (at age 75), in some ways it's clearer: I have fewer illusions and fewer confusions: at age 18 I bought the whole package of the 60's from pot and long hair to the Cuban revolution on the upper west side. I would no longer confuse or conflate teenage rebellion with revolution, just to give one example of a confusion I no longer have. In some sense, life has been a long process of working my way out of my illusions and confusions.
I do not have time at the moment to make the self-revelatory comment I would like to make, but I do want to post something that, despite my moderate ailments, has made me appreciate the gift of just being alive. This past Saturday night I took a break from writing a brief that I had to file on Monday and watched part of America’s Got Talent. This may seem a bit pollyannaish, but I was fortunate to coincidentally catch a performance that was absolutely stunning and poignant, and had a meaningful message for all of us. Here is the link to the performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZJvBfoHDk0
(I tried to make this a hyperlink, apparently without success. You will have to copy and paste it, and then click on the top video.)
I now watch this clip every morning just to give me inspiration to keep on going.
Link to above video and thank you for for that. She has an indomitable spirit:
Golden Buzzer: Nightbirde's Original Song Makes Simon Cowell Emotional - America's Got Talent 2021
This site shows the correct way to make a hyperlink:
HTML Links - Hyperlinks
The "url" you copy from the address bar, and the "link text" is the title of the link (you can make your own title if you want).
Also, when you preview before you post, and if you've done it correctly, the link is clickable and you can try it out there first before you post. Otherwise edit again.
Hope that helps.
Canadian folksinger Joni Mitchell contracted polio at the age of 9. She wrote in her autobiography:
"A great sorrow hath humanized me."
Ahmed,
Thank you for the information. I will follow those instructions in the future.
I hope your are OK.
Apparently I am the youngest here :)
A good friend celebrated his 93rd birthday in February. 6 years ago he decided to summarize the sum of his thoughts in the form of a 3-part book. Part 3 is currently being edited. Each part is about 150 - 180 pages.
I must confess, 6 years ago, when he announced his project to me, he seemed to me as clear and awake as ever, but nevertheless I had quiet doubts whether he would have the staying power to complete his work.
With the help of a secretary to whom he dictated his thoughts directly into the keyboard twice a week, he has completed his project and is currently dictating a kind of prolegomena.
I once asked him if he had a trick he could use to work more concentrated. He answered me with the words: 20 years ago I would have had to write 4 pages for what I can now summarize on one page. Like on a map, I had the whole route in my mind from the beginning. I just left out all the places where there was nothing but the beautiful view.
I think I am demyelinating. I can now solve the same proportion of the puzzles on my iPad...but a lot slower (It records the seconds it takes). Perhaps time seem to go more quickly as we age, because we start a task that used to take one minute, and, lo and behold, when we finish it is two minutes later.
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