While this series of “mini”-reflections on aging are clearly personal and about my own aging process, they are also meant, hopefully, to resonate with the experiences of others at or near my age. That said, these ruminations will appear, usually a couple in each post, from time to time.  And here—after I wandered off for a few weeks on “Knowing and Believing”—is the third set, on “Lasting Contributions” and “Mellowing Out.”

Two “Umbrella” statements

• The only thing worse than getting old is not getting old (with my friend, Joel’s, reminder of a caveat: for some, “getting old” can bring the kinds of severe limitations—cognitive or physical—that do make it worse than “not getting old”).
• Younger certainties become older uncertainties.

Lasting Contributions

Now that I am fully and finally retired, I am more inclined to look back on my life and wonder just what lasting contributions, if any, I have made to my world and to other persons. 

My wife, Cathy, and I broached that conversation recently and came up with the possibility that perhaps there is no such thing as a “lasting” contribution—or impression or accomplishment—because, as time moves on, even the most creative and innovative achievements tend to be overshadowed by the next one and swallowed up by history.  That doesn’t mean, however, that a given attainment is not crucially important to its own time and place and worth valuing, remembering, and treasuring. I try to keep that in focus as I recall and reminisce from time to time about various critical and decisive periods in my forty-five years serving two institutions and hope that something worthwhile happened here and there.

The second kind of “contribution” we talked about were lasting impressions on students.  The problem is that it is rare to know about them except for the occasional student who will speak to you or contact you decades later and tell you of something you said or did that had a lasting effect on their life.  When they happen, they are among the most cherished events in an educator’s life.  It is equally “interesting” and ironic how likely it may be that you don’t even remember having said or done what had such an impact on the student’s life. An argument, perhaps, for increased awareness and mindfulness of what we say and do—one never knows.

Mellowing Out?

Sometimes I recall thinking earlier in my life about the process of aging and assuming, perhaps because I had some good examples, that it would involve “mellowing out”—laying aside the stress and worry, becoming more gentle, softened, relaxed, agreeable, etc. While it’s true that full retirement (finally!) did enable me to leave behind the stress of deadlines for more work than I could stay on top of, I’m not sure the rest of “mellowing out” has applied much. In some ways, as a number of my recent posts have demonstrated, I’ve become more curious, inquiring, and even argumentative, spent more time wondering about matters that once were pretty settled in my mind. On the one hand, of course, given my background in philosophy, I’ve always had a questioning mind, but I guess I assumed as time passed, all would be more, rather than less, resolved.  Hasn’t happened!

Not only in matters of the mind, but on the behavioral, active side, “mellow” isn’t exactly the term that occurs to me. Physical limitations?  Yes, of course. As Frederick Buechner put it:

“If that leads senior citizens to think of all the things they’d still love to do but can’t anymore, it only makes matters worse. But it needn’t work that way. . . .  Eighty-year olds . . . can (still) play at being eighty-year olds for instance. Stiff knees and hearing aids, memory loss and poor eyesight, are no fun, but there are those who marvelously survive them by somehow managing to see them, among other things and in spite of all, a little funny” (Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter’s Dictionary, “Old Age,” p. 100). 

Hopefully, I’ve been able to see the humor, crotchety remarks aside!  But, that said, my life is full—volunteerism and Board membership with non-profit organizations serving human needs in the community, a men’s group that meets regularly, courses taken in a life-long learning center, membership in a readers theatre group, participation in a regular cardio rehab program, etc.  I can’t find “mellowing out” in there. And that’s OK!

But now, the caveat. In the arena of personal relationships and an approach to life in these very difficult and challenging times in public and social life, I turn to a quotation from my friend, Guy Sayles, from his Commencement address at Mars Hill University:

“I cannot prove beyond uncertainty that tenderness, gentleness, and kindness are more powerful than toughness, harshness, and selfishness or that hospitality, mercy and patience are stronger than exclusion, judgment, and haste. I cannot demonstrate to you beyond the need for a kind of faith that hope emerges from despair, love casts out fear, and life is stronger than death. From my experience, though, I trust that they are.”

Whether aspiring to this powerful statement qualifies as “mellowing” aside, I do embrace the call to life that it offers. Thank you, Guy!