Getting Old
"How terribly strange to be 70"
That's a line from a Simon and Garfunkel song from the mid 60s and how right they were!
I'm very fortunate in my old age.
I live in a peaceful place and have a pension that is adequate for my needs.
I can walk around as I please with no aches and pains - tho vertigo makes that experience way different than it was.
I have COPD but I don't feel it - I only know because a specialist gave some tests - but these days I'm not riding heavy bikes up steep hills so I don't notice.
I really wish I had an appetite - I don't like food at all - but I eat because I know I have to and I have that managed.
By any measure, I'm very well off, even for Canada let alone the rest of the world.
I go for a walk each day and I pass very many people much less lucky than me. There are homeless people camped on the sidewalk. There are people suffering overdoses being rescued by medics.
There are also old folks. People hobbling around with walkers or people who need walkers hobbling around without.
I like being 75 in many ways. It's very interesting to see what the world of the 1960s has become and to have a memory of that past world.
Interesting and not always pleasing.
I remember what it was like when abortion was illegal. It was not pretty. And I was glad when abortion became legal and then am way shocked that it's not legal in many places. It's not an academic question for me. It's not academic for anyone who engages in sex.
When I was young homelessness was an idea that hadn't been invented. Even broke guys living on unemployment insurance could afford places to live. Some of us went off to live in the woods in tents but we didn't think of that as homelessness..
The thing that bothers me most as I age is that my memory isn't as good. Once I could remember dozens of phone numbers. Now I don't need to - my phone does that now so that's cool.
I like to write computer code for fun in Python. That's a pretty memory intensive thing to do. You need to keep many levels of abstraction - from keywords to syntax to the logic of the algorithm straight at once. I find it hard. I work with a manual at my fingertips but by the time I get the manual opened I've forgotten what I was looking for.
It's like going into the kitchen for something and then when you get there you forget why you came.
I can relate to the cognitive problems that I saw in Biden. And I didn't think they were problems in the big picture. Just normal aging and he has a support network and is no dummy. He's done a good job.
Biden provides an example of aging well.
Trump provides a counter example. He presents an example of aging into dementia - and a nasty dementia at that.
When I do my walk each day I see old folks creeping along - determined to get done what they wanted and ready to overcome obstacles.
I also pass people sleeping on the sidewalk - nowhere to go and nothing to do
I also see demented people - people yelling at the voices in their head
A society is what a whole bunch of people do together. We have this idea that that bunch needs a leader like an orchestra needs a conductor. The leader is seen as the one who produces the outcome - not the orchestra players - and above the leader is the composer.
I don't think the conductor and composer model works for society.
What do you think?
I present regular philosophy discussions in a virtual reality called Second Life.
I set a topic and people come as avatars and sit around a virtual table to discuss it.
Each week I write a short essay to set the topic.
I show a selection of them here.