Dealing with holes in my memory and wondering,where am I on the Alzheimer’s disease continuum?

Normal memory blip or foolish catastrophizing?

For countless years, after meditating, I’ve been saying the same Metta prayer of loving kindness.  Year after year, month after month, week after week, day after day, the same simple five part prayer. And this past week, on three separate occasions, I forgot a passage!  The same passage each time.  Flat out drew a blank. Candles burning, music playing, the chant began, “May I be in peace.  May my heart remain open.  May I… may I…” nothing, empty, vacant, a hole in my memory! 

As so many of my elder contemporaries commonly experience, I’ve had a word go missing before, a key noun falling into an unexpected manhole, the brain struggling for the synapse to deliver to the tip of the tongue.  But not like this! This was more than simply an awkward moment; more than a bothersome, but infrequent, occasional occurrence. This lapse of memory was a black hole, a massive void, a space vacuum, nothingness, not a glimpse of the rim of the gorge where terra firma waited.

So I’m a bit uneasy about what might lie ahead. Which motivates me to write about it, because of all the topics that come up in the sharing circles, the fear of being struck with Alzheimer’s disease is the number one aging horror. By bearing witness to my experience with memory loss, the emotions attached to the event are neutralized; by sharing, the hidden fears are uncovered and given light.

Typically I’m at the grocery store thumping the cantaloupes when I say to Arlene… “Let’s get some of those…” and I try again, “You know, those…” and there’s nothing; just a gap; no matter how hard I struggle to find the word. 

“Those what?” Arlene asks, “What are you talking about?” 

For the moment I don’t know the answer!  But I’m present; I know where I am, and what’s happening. It’s frustrating to grope for the missing word but I stay in the moment and keep up a normal dialogue.  The lapse of memory is exasperating but I stay connected to the present; cognizant; engaged.

“You know, those seeds that our granddaughter likes to eat.”  Arlene doesn’t fathom so my brain begins to construct a bridge across the abyss.  “We bought them at Mariano’s.  They come in a deli carton with saran wrap across the top.  They’re red and kind of gooey.  We buy them for our granddaughter. Madelyn loves them.”

“They’re seeds?” Arlene asks.

“Yeah, from some kind of fruit.”  The word still eludes me but the bridge across the hole has lengthened and expanded, and finally Arlene crosses over.

“You mean pomegranate seeds?” she takes a stab at the answer.

“Yes, pomegranate seeds,” I shake my head in relief.  The hole in my brain is repaired.

Down the line, when a similar situation pops up unexpectedly and one of us is groping for a lost word, we accept the frustrating lapse in memory as a common symptom of aging.  We might fill in the blank with a mischievous mention of “pomegranate seeds,” a good-natured acknowledgement of reality rather than a pessimistic forecast of impending dementia.

But for twenty years I’ve been saying this phrase … May I awaken to the light of my own true nature…and having “lost” it, I cannot help but wonder, am I taking my place in the slow moving line of the Alzheimer’s disease continuum?

The Alzheimer’s disease continuum starts with pre-clinical Alzheimer’s disease (brain changes that are unnoticeable) and ends with severe Alzheimer’s dementia (brain changes that cause problems with memory and thinking). How long individuals spend in each part of the continuum varies. The length of each part of the continuum is influenced by age, genetics and other factors.

Am I in the continuum? The main sign of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a slight decline in mental abilities. Patients lose semantic memory, they struggle with knowledge of everyday objects and have trouble communicating as it involves the capacity to recall words, concepts, or numbers, which is essential for the use and understanding of language. Should it occur, the progress from MCI to dementia is approximately three and a half years. It is not a foregone conclusion!

I Googled the numbers. Alzheimer’s is currently ranked as the seventh leading cause of death in the United States, fifth-leading cause among Americans aged 65 and older. The percentage of people with Alzheimer’s dementia increases with age: 5.0% of people aged 65 to 74, 13.1% of people aged 75 to 84, and 33.3% of people aged 85 and older have Alzheimer’s dementia. Individuals at least 90 years old are the fastest growing segment of the US population and in a diverse sample, 33% were diagnosed with dementia over a 6-year period.

I’m not panicking.  I’ve looked at the odds, my propensities and my disinclinations. Almost two-thirds of Americans with Alzheimer’s are women. Older Black Americans are about twice as likely to have Alzheimer’s or other dementias as older Whites.  I’m not a woman.  I’m not Black. I have less problems than other people my age. My symptoms are not severe. I can take care of myself and carry out all normal daily activities. I engage in social activities.  I exercise. I eat a healthy menu. I continue to author essays and edit a newspaper for seniors.  I travel to foreign countries and massacre Spanish while in Mexico.  I meditate. I have dozens of strategies for relieving stress and improving my mood. I have a loving relationship with my children.  And a granddaughter who is the proverbial apple of my eye.  I have a brilliant, compassionate, therapist spouse who doesn’t charge me for my sessions.

Yes, people with MCI are at a greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia. Roughly one to two out of 10 people age 65 or older with MCI are estimated to develop dementia over a one-year period. However, in many cases, the symptoms of MCI stay the same or even improve. The odds are still in my favor.

This morning I am seated in front of the puja, candles glowing, music cooing, time for the Metta prayer… which flows flawlessly from my lips without a hint of a stumble. … May I awaken to the light of my own true nature…

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Still active at age 91, Howard Englander’s essays guide readers to the realization that growing old can be a rewarding journey filled with joy and profound new discoveries. He is the author of Embracing Elderhood: The Three Stages of Healthy, Happy and Meaningful Senior Years. Published in hard copy and digital format, the book is available on Amazon.com/Books, BarnesandNoble.com, Bookshop.org and the publisher, Rowman&Littlefield.com.

I am not attending my 70th college reunion!

Red and Blue will upward soar, led by men of ’54 (the class yell, before Wharton went co-ed)

It’s coming up.  The seventieth annual reunion of the class of 1954.

I’m not going. I just can’t see myself hobbling at the tail end of the ‘Progression of the Classes,’ wearing a bright red sash honoring us members of The Old Guard still sufficiently ambulatory to walk across the historic quad. Fact is, outside of a minimal curiosity in the hoops rivalry with Princeton, I no longer am attentive to the University of Pennsylvania or the Ivy League or any elitist institution with a Young Republican Club.

When I graduated from Passaic High School in 1950, I knew as much about the Ivy League as I did about the Nebraska Community College Athletic Conference. I have a yellowing snapshot of eighteen-year-old Howard grinning foolishly, showing off the Tweedle Dee dink I would wear from the start of school until Christmas vacation, barring a victory over Cornell at the annual Thanksgiving Day football game, a triumph that would lop a month off the hazing ritual.

“It’s my college yarmulke,” I joked as my dad took the picture of his smirking son in the silly cap. I was optimistic, excited, a sponge for every new exposure to campus life.

Decades later, when I started writing in my seventies, I penned a semi-fictional short story about my experiences at Penn called “The Cordovan Shoes.” The premise was a rather obvious metaphor… the protagonist, “Harold,” recounting his fiftieth college reunion, wearing on a whim the same shoes he wore as a freshman, thinking they still fit, and finding out as the event progressed, they would blister his feet bloody because over time he had outgrown them.

… On a whim, he had resurrected them from the back of the floor-to-ceiling shoe rack he had installed when he moved in with Elaine.  He hadn’t worn them in years, not since his freshman year at Penn, when he bought them as part of his transformation from Dead End kid to college boy, replacing the Thom McCann blue suede shoes that singled him out as a clueless yocal during that first day of fraternity rushing.  He had saved them all these years, shoe trees and Mink Oil preserving the leather as they nested in one packing carton to another, accompanying Harold along his journey from undergraduate to Old Guard alum.  Harold had decided to wear them to the reunion, polishing the horsehide to a boot camp shine.  

Harold wonders if his roommate from his momentous first year would be at the reunion.  They were an unlikely pair, Harold, the street kid from the Bronx, the liquor salesman’s boy, and Jon Holm, Jr., scion of the South…The absurdity of their friendship delighted them both; they had gone away to college to experience new phenomena, and surely there was no pairing more improbable.  Harold smiled at the memory.  He couldn’t wait to catch up with that good ole boy.

“Were you and your roommate Jon in the same fraternity?” Harold’s wife, Elaine, asks.

Harold turns to his wife, taken aback by her question.  “Elaine, I went to college in the early fifties,” he replies indulgently.  “Fraternities were segregated.  There were no Jews in Delta Tau Delta, no sweethearts of Sigma Chi named Esther or Leah.  If you were Jewish, you could join a Jewish fraternity and that was it.”  He continues, “Everybody knew Penn had a quota system.  If it weren’t for the Wharton Business School, there wouldn’t have been ten Jews in the whole damn place.”

             … Harold is quick to understand that the costume often defines the actor.  For his role as Ivy Leaguer, he exchanges his double-breasted, brown serge suit and clip-on yellow bowtie with a blue button-down shirt, gray flannel pants, and red and blue rep tie.  Dressed for the part, he takes on the persona of a graduate of Choate by way of Old Westbury.  He learns to talk without moving his jaw, becomes a pen pal to a girl at Smith, and assumes that the world owes him the same perks of power, affluence, and obeisance as any scion of the Pew family.  It’s a harmless sham, and he has fun playing the part, except when the real heir to the Sun Oil fortune talks to him like he just stepped into a pile of dog shit and the girl from Smith asks if he prefers a Presbyterian or Episcopal service

            Each fraternity house has a profile the aspirants try to match, flaunting or concealing a lengthy list of descriptive adjectives corresponding to the desired paragon: Protestant, Catholic or Jewish; jock, brain or socialite; prep school, public school, or from the Bronx; old money, new money, or no money.  About a third of the Freshmen class will be picked to pledge.  An equal number will be blackballed.  The remainder will carry the title ‘Independent,’ maintaining a defiant attitude throughout their undergraduate years: piss on you!

Harold and Jon are accepted as pledges, guzzling six-packs from the State Store to celebrate their new status as fledgling Greeks, elated at being accepted, included, approved, CHOSEN as worthy of the select few.  It doesn’t take long for the boys to become sloshed.  Jon is curious about “them Jewish houses,” and Harold tells him he’s pledging Zeta Laida Shiksha.  Jon says he’s joining Ada Mada Pie. Convulsed with laughter, Harold screams back, “Don’t forget I Felta Thigh.”

It’s a great evening; the beer bash is a good way to cover up their uneasiness at what lies ahead. The next day, they start having their meals at the fraternity house, giving up the table at the student union where they had eaten dinner together since the first day of Freshmen orientation.

            …Harold was grumpy.  The flight home, delayed an hour by pouring rain that slowed Philadelphia to a crawl, was crowded, hot, and stomach-churning bumpy from the turbulent weather.   Harold didn’t hide his “not now, talk to me later” mood. What made matters worse, the blisters on both of his heels had broken, oozing a sticky wetness into the gauze pads he had taped behind his ankles to reduce the excruciating pain he felt with every step

It wasn’t the weekend he thought it would be.  There was nothing left of the old campus that capricious memory had mapped so clearly.  The fraternity house had been razed, an Institute for Advanced Macroeconomics in its place. At the entrance to the quadrangle where the Freshman dorms were located, a guardhouse worthy of a maximum-security prison barred his way pending picture ID and reason for visit.  The cafeteria where he and Jon and their exuberant classmates met each night for hot coffee and fresh gossip was now a food court, the extruded plastic signs of a dozen franchises offering food to match. 

 Harold had run into Jon at the class tent. 

“Hey, Jon, it’s me, Harold Levine. Howya doing, roomy?” Harold had exulted, reaching out to hug his friend.

It took only an instant to squelch his enthusiasm.  Clearly Jon, circa fifty years hence, was not the type for hugs and high-spirited stories that started out with, “Hot damn, remember when…” To the contrary, Jon’s memories of the good old days had left him lamenting the admission of women into the Wharton School and grumbling about the number of Asians and blacks that had infested the campus.

“Infested?” Harold had exclaimed, his appalled look signaling the start of confrontation not typically heard among jovial alumni celebrating Homecoming Day.  It was inevitable: the war in Iraq, the inheritance tax, private school vouchers, the influence on foreign policy of the Israeli NACPAC… The conversation pecked and pawed like a free-range chicken scratching the sore spots of evangelical right and liberal left.  The two men were separated when “fucking bigot” and “unpatriotic bastard” became the talking points of the argument in question. 

  … Harold was determined not to let the disappointing afternoon taint the evening’s festivities.  The class dinner was scheduled as the highlight of the weekend, and he was looking forward to mingling with friends he hadn’t seen for decades, particularly since the banquet was being held at the Union League Club.  As he told Elaine with more than a trace of malice in his voice, “When I was an undergrad, the only way I could have gotten into the club was through the back door as a dishwasher.”

Tucking his aching feet under the ten-top, Harold looked around the table and estimated that he and Elaine were sitting next to about eight billion dollars of net worth, two face-lifts, and two trophy brides.   Fifteen minutes into the conversation, he decided he wouldn’t trade his life with anyone there.  It wasn’t as if the scion of the family cosmetics company was uninteresting, or the single largest shareholder of the world’s biggest REIT was boring; it was the one-chord harmony of their chorus: “Did you see the WSJ this morning?  Obama has got to ease off his human rights demands, or bond markets will feel it in the ass.”

Harold examined his compatriots seated around the table, the chair emeritus of a global electronics conglomerate and the leading rainmaker of the country’s most prestigious law firm rounding out the quintet.  It came to him that each man was successful for the same reason: they had a goal, and they strove to achieve it, point A to point B, no stops in-between.  Everything in their lives contributed to the ultimate conclusion: the right wives, the right in-laws, the right politics, even the right rehab centers.  Harold, on the other hand, had bounced around like the pinball swatted by the blind wizard’s flailing flippers.  He had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory a dozen times (on purpose, expostulated his cadre of therapists, “impending disaster is a wonderful way to make you feel alive”).  Harold felt deflated.  But as the evening ended, the most extraordinary event took place: locker room hugs, firm handshakes, and heartfelt goodbyes poured from the four honored members of the Wharton School Hall of Fame.  Harold was floored by their deference.

“God, I envy you, Harold.  What an exciting life you’ve led, not like my boring existence” was the joint theme.

…Harold would contemplate the irony on the flight home.  What was there to be gained from reliving history? “Why revisit the past when there is so much to live for in the present?” he asked himself for the thousandth time, and as he would a thousand times hence.   

Indeed, why revisit the past when there is so much to live for in the present? I ask myself for the thousandth time, as I will a thousand times hence.   

*Steve Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, holds a B.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. from Harvard. His salary in 2022 was $1,282,000,000 (That’s billion, in case you missed the six zeros).

*In contrast, Liz Shuler, the first woman leaderof AFL-CIO graduated from Oregon University and earns $268,587.  Shawn Fain, President of United Auto Workers, is a graduate of Taylor High School, Kokomo, Indiana with a salary just over $300,000. Mary Kay Henry, President of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), graduated from Michigan State. Her salary is $279,044.

Still active at age 91, Howard Englander’s essays guide readers to the realization that growing old can be a rewarding journey filled with joy and profound new discoveries. He is the author of “Embracing Elderhood: The Three Stages of Healthy, Happy and Meaningful Senior Years.” Published in hard copy and digital format, the book is available on Amazon.com/Books, BarnesandNoble.com, Bookshop.org

Emojis are not substitutes for genuine emotions

Five years ago I wrote a version of this column after learning, with amazement, that information downloaded from the internet was being transmitted at the rate of one Megabit a second (1,000,000 bits), or roughly one small photo per second. At the time I was marveling at a stunning, thousand times advance in technology considering that when the Internet was introduced in 1993, the transmission rate was 1,000 bits a second.

Today, the jump in speed boggles the mind, as China has rolled out the ‘world’s fastest’ internet network that can transmit data at a rate of 1.2 terabits per second!  Let me spell that out for you, one trillion, two hundred billion bits per second. 

The Cloud rains data and there is no place to hide from the torrent of information, be it fatuous, inane, or profane. And sadly, what we call social media has morphed into a jargon that is decidedly antisocial.  Caught in the swirl of an ever-growing sea of chatter and anonymous slander, the discomfort – often, genuine harm — caused to growing numbers of vulnerable teens in particular, is disturbing.

We have forgotten how to communicate on a meaningful basis and clearly the problem has worsened exponentially. Social networking has become so prominent in our daily lives we are accustomed to “talking” with each other via emails, tweets and texts as a matter of course. So much so there is a danger of no longer knowing how to connect face to face. Hitting the ‘Send’ key does not relieve us of taking responsibility for delivering the communication and making certain that it is clearly understood and acknowledged as such.

It has become more important than ever before to communicate from the heart rather than a list of emojis. Can a Smiley Face replace a hug of joy?

Technology links people together but what of the essential elements of a true relationship? An icon is not a replacement for feelings of intimacy. It is doubtful that a 280-character tweet can truly express the depth of our love, our concern, our sadness.

People want to be heard. They want to be listened to, not with surface reactions but with true depth of feeling. When we speak with emotion, allowing ourselves to reveal our vulnerability, the words flow with energy powerful enough to rekindle the inner spirit. Similarly, when on the receiving end of communications expressed with depth of genuine feelings, we are compelled to listen and to respond in kind with a full, open heart.

We Elders suffer a comedian’s bonanza of jokes about our clumsy internet skills, but for all my efforts to stay current, becoming adroit at texting with two thumbs on a lilliputian sized keypad is not on my list of wistful fancies. Quite the opposite. When it comes to reaching out to friends and colleagues with an open heart, I’m old school. I do accept and appreciate the big screen on my desktop and thank you Spell Check for saving me many an embarrassing mishap, but expressing an idea or describing an event more meaningful that a new drop of Air Jordan kicks requires a sifting of phrases, a second and third reading for nuance or tuba oom-pah clarity. As for letters flowing with love or wet with tears of grief, I have a favorite gel-ink pen that pours out the words in streams that wander and gather and ebb and flow into a river of emotion.

I cannot imagine Anais Nin tap tapping her letters to Henry Miller on an iPhone!  “Your voice getting hoarser, deeper, your eyes blacker, your blood thicker, your body fuller. A voluptuous servility and tyrannical necessity. More cruel now than before — consciously, willfully cruel. The insatiable delight of experience.”

I’m thinking of ending this screed with an emoji, but I can’t find one that smirks with sarcasm.

A glimpse of heaven

We are all born with a condition, inherent and ever present from our first breath to our last.  It is the human condition.

The condition is fatal. There is no cure.  The endgame is death.  And we are fully aware of the finale. 

How does one live with that foregone conclusion forever looming over the shoulder?

When we are young, bubbling over with enthusiasm and endless energy, the delusion of immortality is forgiven; part of growing up is to ride our bikes faster than the reaper can run. 

Chronology, of course, is faster still, and with the first touch of sciatica the creeping fear casts its shadow. But flush with victories in the corporate wars and behind the mask of bonhomie, denial is an efficient sedative to muffle the anxiety. No hospice in sight.

And then we grow old. And now the specter has shape and form. The human condition has symptoms, and the prognosis is inescapable. Far away and a long way off has become in your face. And that’s when the miracle occurs.  You are staring at your fear, close up… and you realize, Death has given you a gift.

Not a reprieve from the inevitable, but an appreciation of the indescribable wonders that came with creation and subsist within you as consciousness. With denial a futile option, the sigh of resignation that signals acceptance of what is to be, opens the doorway to what is, in the here and now, and it is beautiful.

You see it clearly, for the first time. In all its awe. The vast ocean, a raindrop held in the palm of your hand. Galaxies, their light still unseen by the James Webb telescope, aglow in a sunbeam. An infinite universe, the mother of us all, throbbing with life in the drumbeat of your heart, every bird, beast, graceful flower and sturdy oak singing the same song.

You see it clearly, fully mindful of the unseen force that binds multitudes of multitudes into One.  It is called Love.  Universal love.   Sitting quietly, as Elders do, a vigil with our aging Self, we recognize that life is not limitless, and we give ourselves over to the pure love that surrounds us, at one with Oneness.

My suggestion, the point of this florid essay, is don’t wait for the end before opening your eyes and your heart. When you love without reservation, offer compassion without condescension and abstain from judgement, your fear of the dark evaporates in the flood of your Light.

Mind, body, spirit : Thoughts, feelings, behaviors

It surprises me when people are insulted when someone tells them that a physical pain or ailment might be psychosomatic.  Are not the body, mind and spirit connected?

As I explain to my Life Coach clients, we feel in our body.  It is where our emotions are amplified as sensations.  We think in our mind.  It is the storehouse of our thoughts, both conscious and subconscious.  And our spirit is our witness, our conscious awareness.  It is the part of us that observes our behavior and gives us free choice… determines who we are at the core, defining our values, morals and character.

To separate those aspects of the Self keeps us from being fully present.  When all three work together in harmony, when all three are balanced, then we can live more fully and completely, thus more happily.

Just as the body, mind and spirit are interconnected, so are thoughts, feelings and behaviors.  This relationship was beautifully illustrated in a segment of 60 Minutes a few years back about the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra.  It showed how learning to play an orchestral instrument changed the lives of poor children in dramatic fashion… the music touching their spirits… which affected their way of thinking about themselves… which opened them to new ways of behaving… and coming up with options other than being condemned to their fate in the ghetto.

At this juncture, despite the analogy, invariably my clients interject, “Howard, I understand that I can look at evidence and change my mind about something, and I can see how my behavior might change as a result.  But how can you change an emotion when it is not coming from the soothing strings of the violin section, but when the stress it is causing rages inside you like a churning ocean?”

“Can you surf?” I ask.  “I don’t mean the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans; I mean in the ocean of your own consciousness?”

Consider an emotion as a wave of energy.  If we can ride that wave, we will be in control of it rather than pulled under by its force.  Imagine having waded into the “real” ocean and a big wave is coming.  You have three choices: dig in and attempt to withstand the force of the wave (denial); or duck under and attempt to avoid the wave’s force; wave and the next (addiction); or surf the wave and ride it safely to shore as its force dissipates and deposits you safely on the beach.

Each day we face situations where stress is inevitable.  We can dig in and fight the roiling emotions, hide and avoid them, or surf the feelings and prevent them from gathering force.

The winding path to clarity

Whenever I get a bit full of myself with a smugness that suggests I’ve got this thing called life all figured out, I remind myself of the guru who, after forty years of study, referred to himself as being in “spiritual kindergarten.”  His humble wisdom allows me to laugh at myself; because clearly the further I progress toward that elusive goal of understanding where I fit in this chaotic world of ours, the more I realize how much there is to learn and how much farther I must travel toward even a glimmer of enlightenment.

Yet I strive for proficiency and control as if I were gunning for an A-grade on a college course or a graduation diploma that says I’ve completed a curriculum that certifies I’m an expert on living a happy life.  Of course this pursuit creates stress, not peace.  It creates an environment that puts the emphasis on the end result rather than the unexpected discoveries that await along the way. 

The path to clarity about life and one’s place within it, is my grand journey.  But focusing on the final result prompts me to think in linear terms, as if there were two markers – the start and the end – and everything in between is merely struggle toward the finish line… a grand journey turned into a long grind.

The paradox intrinsic to my relentless pursuit of a goal, is that I make more mistakes than normal because I am so bound up in being perfect.  I have to remember, flawlessness as an aspiration is not reasonable. 

A reasonable expectation is to set short term objectives and long term goals.  That’s a program more apt to lead to where I want to be, traveling at a comfortable, doable pace, small steps leading to long strides… and miraculous adventures along the way.

I love this saying, the author unknown but so wise, “Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.”

There are twists and turns to every worthwhile endeavor, and we can be sure that mistakes will be made along the way.  But what we call mistakes often turn out to be the pepper in the pot, the unseen spice that elevates the standardized into the remarkably unique.

Be it personal, professional or spiritual, fulfillment comes when the journey absorbs the quest.  Short of being a hallowed guru or revered, personified reflection of spiritual purity, our happiness is determined by the discoveries made as we follow our own path within the flow of life itself.

Clarity – and contentment – comes with recognition that in a universe of one hundred billion galaxies there is no mastery, only mystery.    Do your best to create a healthy loving environment and trust that this is the setting that will light your way.

Conscious Listening

Are you done?  It’s my turn to talk.

All too often that is the ‘conversation’ that takes place when even the most committed of couples have a conflict that puts them at odds with each other.

When lacking an open mind toward those with whom we disagree, there is a tendency to double down when confronted by an opposing argument, raising the volume rather than hearing out the dissenting assertion and considering its validity.  Thinking you have delivered a communication that is crystal clear to you but seemingly ignored by the other party is one of the major causes of frustration.  Exasperated by the deaf ears the inclination is to talk louder, and louder still.  But even the highest volume shouting won’t be heard when the other person is simply waiting to take his or her turn to ramp up the amps.

Competing for time on the soapbox, that is when disagreement becomes disagreeable.

To have a well-founded argument you must first have a thorough understanding of the opposing line of reasoning with which you take issue.  You must listen carefully.  You must respect the person you’re arguing with as a counterweight rather than an enemy, leaving space for a benefit of doubt and allowing at least a smidgeon of possibility that you might be persuaded to alter your position.  Otherwise, why bother to engage?

A disagreement in and of itself is not a bad thing.  Quite the contrary; it can lead to mutual respect, admiration for novel ideas and when building on each other’s line of reasoning rather than tearing them down, a chance for a seminal moment when two and two make five.

But it starts with conscious listening.  Rather than responding to another’s argument with an immediate rebuke and rebuttal, be alert to any emotional charge that might be present and take time to listen and fully understand.  There’s an actual strategy to listening regardless of the intensity of the disagreement.  Instead of screaming, “I’m right and you’re wrong” here’s how conscious listening may temper the furor.

As simplistic as it may seem, ‘mirroring’ what the other person says makes for clarity (What I heard you say is).  Assuring the other person that he/she has been heard accurately, validates him/her and verifies your understanding of their position.  Understanding – distinct from agreement – is a sign of empathy for the speaker and ensures that the debate doesn’t turn into a personal attack, the crucial prerequisite of civilized disagreement.

Having been listened to without the disdain that sets tempers soaring, there’s no need for the person on the other side of the table to be defensive and the goodwill can be returned without ceding a loss of ground. Now it is your turn to talk and to be heard.

With the process repeated, Mirroring, Validating and Empathizing, there is at least a possibility for positions to be changed, and if not that, at least the acknowledgement that we agree to disagree in harmony.

On being an Elder: the responsibilities that come with the title

Elders have the wisdom to shape the world as it can be at its best, not necessarily with new inventions or leading the way to Mars.  But with our attitudes, our moral values and our votes. As elders we have a moral obligation to speak out against discrimination and an elemental responsibility to teach our grand kids what is right and what is morally reprehensible

Our views have weight.  We are the sages, the teachers, the philosophers with the perspective that only comes with age.  But we must speak out.  We can’t sit around grumbling about ‘the good old days. We must weigh in on the public debate on the preservation of the environment, the disparity of wealth, the continuing struggle against racism and the corrosive effects of imprecise scales of justice.

We deal with forgetfulness and have trouble remembering words and names, but we remember when Congress was an employee of the American people rather than the lobbyists.  

Aroused Elders can motivate the four in ten seniors who failed to vote in the last election and motivate a constituency that demands change. 

As our generation matured, there were strong views prevailing and the disputes were bitter.  But there was an underlying sense that both sides of the debate, however rabid and militant, could find common ground in the basic themes that made up ‘the American Way,’ as in Liberty and Justice for All.  Neighbors could declare themselves Republican or Democrat, but they still could borrow the hedge clippers when the hawthorn and blackthorn scrubs between their houses grew too tall.

But today, lamentably and shamefully, the polarized society that exists in America is unprecedented.  Half the population sees the world one way; half sees it another way.  And there is no middle ground.  The hedgerows are impenetrable.

The dilemma we face as Elders is “What to do about it?”  Traditionally, we are the voices of reason, anxious to ‘make peace’ by listening to each point of view and then tactfully finding compromises satisfactory to both sides.  But we should not be satisfied with simply salving umbrage. Human dignity is at stake!  We cannot leave this earth without speaking out and knowing we did the best we could to make our voices heard.

The issues are clear.  We are not being simplistic when we align ourselves on the side of love versus hatred, fear, racism, bigotry and intolerance.  To our dismay, when Americans were asked to cast a ballet in the proposition that all people are equal and deserve a place at the table, half the population said no. That’s why we must speak up. Being heard and taking a stand against injustice is our elemental responsibility. There is no time left for equivocating; no more ‘wait and see.’  We must choose between two existing versions of America and decide, what kind of country do we want to leave behind for our grandchildren?

There is a personal battle to be waged, as well.  The issue of ageism.

I was an old man at the Women’s March on Washington and applauded an alphabet soup of organizations fighting for sanctuary, economic equality, social justice, sexual liberation, the spectrum of causes that have galvanized women.  The common theme: we will not be marginalized; we will be heard; we demand a place in the halls of influence and power.

What impressed me was the tone of the oratory.  It’s not as if they were strident; more like “listen up, because we have a right to be heard.”   They were not asking for permission to speak; they were seizing the dais and carpe diem was the pronouncement.

It was inspiring, but among all the causes represented, one was absent. The issue of ageism had no signs waved in defiance by the marchers.  But surely it fits within the root demand that characterizes what the march was all about: we will not be marginalized; we will be heard; we demand a place in the halls of influence and power.  I can write the signs: “Old enough to know better and experienced enough to do it right.” When you’re over the hill you pick up speed,” “Retired, not expired!” and “Never tease an old dog; he might have one bite left.”

Ageism is a serious issue, but it gets nowhere near the attention focused on racism, or sexism or disability-based discrimination. Which is curious when you consider that by 2050 a fifth of the population, eighty-seven million Americans, will be over age 65 and subject to discrimination in housing, employment and downright disdain.

I’m calling for an Old Folks march!  In keeping with the stereotypes existent in today’s youth dominated society we’ll assemble sometime in late Spring, a half hour before the early bird special at the Pancake House when the weather is in the seventies, and the sun is out.

There’s no time to waste.  The bard reminds us, “Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers, come to dust.” When we are reminded that our time is finite, immune to our laughable attempts to prolong it, what we must do is not let it pass us by as we stay idle.

The saying goes, “we die as we have lived.” In our final moments we want to look and be satisfied with the bio we’ve left behind, without being bedeviled by the unanswerable “what might have been.”

Rage against the madness of war. (One billion killed!)

On vacation in Ireland I stood atop the ancient ruin of Ballinskelligs Castle overlooking a lake of sublime beauty, a teardrop from God in the pristine stillness of Killarney National Park.  But it was not the trumpet of the Whooper Swan that rang out as I closed my eye and drifted back a thousand years into history, it was the screams of seven thousand men dying in the battle for that crumbling fortress.

A weathered plaque described the war between ruling families with reigns existent in decaying parchment.  As to why the conflict, who won and what were the spoils, a millennium later the answers are lost in the dust of moldering ramparts.  The ruins are a testament to the cosmic senselessness of war as the arbitrator of discord.

But war, for all its futility when measured by inexorable time, remains a constant in the blood stained chronology of man from cave to condominium.

I was born during the Manchurian War of the early 1930s, the atrocities imposed on the Chinese by Japan’s burgeoning war machine barely registering in the west despite 60,000 lives slaughtered.  In my lifetime 180 wars have been fought, the deadliest including Vietnam (2,048,050 killed), the Korean War (995,025), and World War II (an astounding 50-million dead and buried!).

There is numbing sadness in a Google Search of recorded history, an unimaginable report of humans on this planet existing entirely at peace on a paltry average of eight years per century.  The estimate of the total number killed in wars throughout all human history ranges as high as one billion!  Let me line up the gravestones: 1,000,000,000 in rows circling the embattled globe.

Wars are not fought in sporting stadiums, three quarters of the casualties are innocent men, women and children gutted, gassed, shot, bombed, raped, starved and driven from their homes.  It’ baffling.  We live in a benevolent world, with enough arable land, enough food grown to feed very person on the planet 2,800 calories a day if only it were divvied up equally. 

Our societies have never shared resources equally.  To the contrary, despots continue to seek no alternative other than taking up arms to “get what we don’t have.”

I’m poking this beehive because my role as an Elder is to remind you of what I have seen and to warn you of what I see.

I’m concerned that here in America the end of the national draft in 1973 created an attitude of complacency among the post war generations following the Boomers of WWII.  ‘War’ has become a moment of sensationalism when a Navy Seal Special Forces team creates headlines with a dramatic rescue in a country with an unpronounceable name.

The bloodshed simply doesn’t affect us.  Why should it when the nation’s taxpayers pony up the cost for a million and a quarter US military personnel paid to mop up the messes.

At this very moment, using a definition of ‘war’ as “more than a thousand killed,” there are 40 armed conflicts raging around the globe.  The number of those killed in Afghanistan surpassed two million; Syria a half million; Iraq just under three hundred thousand.

And now the brutal invasion of Ukraine is the headline story

Which leads me to the November mid-term elections and the influence we seniors still possess as the country’s largest voting bloc.   Place your abhorrence of war ahead of self-interest and support the candidates that understand we must defend the fortresses of democracy in defiance of the despots bent on tearing them down.

Staying grounded as the tanks roll into Ukraine

What can we conclude from the madness of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? How do we live normal, decent lives amid such dark age politics and barbarism? The way we respond can affect our emotional well-being and mental health.  

For me, I make it a point to fold the paper and switch the channel when the unending tide of war news drowns me in despair.  It is important to me to follow the news and to stay informed, but the relentless flow of reporting unimaginable misery can be overwhelming. I know when I have reached my limits of what I can take in before I become numb and give in to indifference.

 It’s vital for me to stay connected to what feeds my soul. These disturbing times present questions so vast in scope and deep in meaning I simply cannot answer them on my own.  I must put the answer into ‘Spirit’s’ hands or whatever your visualization is for the undetectable but undeniable presence of our Source.

My wife wears a talisman in the form of a three dimensional eight pointed star, a tetrahedron or Merkabah, an Egyptian word loosely translated as the body’s spiritual connection to the light. My transitional object is the meditation shawl I wear.  It is a source of solace and wisdom. It keeps me believing there is a basic good that exists in all of us. 

My choice is to remain optimistic.  For humanity, for our planet, there is no other choice. I want to believe that those who commit the atrocities and acts of monstrous cruelty take the space of darkness so we can see and embrace the contrasting light.

How do we live normal, decent lives in the face of the unleashed carnage? Even as our revulsion forces us to turn away from the daily inundation of horrific scenes of war, we must remember that behind the grainy photographs are people like us. We must not become indifferent.  We must seethe with compassion and empathy.  When we shut our eyes to the television screen, we must keep our hearts open.

To do otherwise would be unbearable.