Have I benefited from living to 85? Might I just as well have snuffed it at 70? In short: are there things I now do better?
Verse. This one’s easy. I didn’t write sonnets until my mid-seventies so it’s a case of nothing vs. something. However “something” is not necessarily good.
Wine. Yes, absolutely. By the simple expedient of spending more per bottle. At 70, top whack was about £12; now it’s £35-plus. Also the price of champagne no longer terrifies me.
DIY (Do-it-yourself for the sake of Rouchswalve). At 70 I tried, at 85 I don’t. Definitely an improvement.
Difficult books (Especially Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, by Robert Musil). I read all the ones that matter between ages 60 and 75. These days I merely refer to them, casually, in passing. Much more relaxing.
Driving quickly but legally. This happens only on French motorways. I have added various relations as Named Drivers to my car insurance. Thus I drive less. Thus take fewer risks. I may even live longer.
Writing style. A subjective territory with many keen to disagree. Let’s say I now cut out whole paragraphs; once only single adjectives. Elmore Leonard would probably issue a qualified “Yes”
Mathematics. I used to wrestle with word-based definitions (eg, “is inversely proportional to”). Now I’m more familiar with the symbols. But Dirac could still be all under-water.
Shyness with women. Oh, heaps and heaps. Mainly because of the compliments I have received. Not because I’ve earned them, of course, more out of pure charity. “Say his nose is Roman. Watch his eyes brighten.”
Fruit. I eat it in tonnes (ie, metric tons). Few people say there is anything wrong with this.
Concise blog lists. Getting better by the second.
I did consider waiting to reply to this until I, too, was 85 (I am a little younger than you, at 82). However, at our age every day is a bonus and neither of us might be here in three years time so "carpe diem" !
ReplyDeleteI had prostate cancer at 58, did I benefit from my extra years by the operation to remove that prostate?
Most definitely yes. We have flown many times to Australia to visit our daughter and toured New Zealand twice (first by a coach tour to get the feel of that lovely country and secondly for a month on our own in a hire car). I have been around to see our beautiful great grandchildren flower. I had a further 15 years riding motorcycles and touring on them to my beloved "Wessex". In retirement I formed my own driver training consultancy and used my previous work experience to run a successful bus and coach driver training business.
I had a couple of strokes when I was 75. Do I benefit from the subsequent years? Not really, it has become a life of subtractions as my full glass dwindles by the year.
To copy your headings:
VERSE: I attempted some during my 20s and left it alone thereafter.
WINE: Since my blood pressure tablets (Lisinopril) leave me with side effects akin to mild drunkenness (slight dizziness and unsure balance) I now completely eschew regular alcohol , except of whiskey-laced coffee.
DIY: I have always enjoyed it, particularly mechanical, but now my weakness and lack of coordination makes finicky work difficult and frustrating. Jobs take longer and the extremely physical I either ignore or leave to the professionals, since arthritis and balance means I can no longer climb ladders or squat down for lower work.
DIFFICULT BOOKS: I have always read to either enjoy or inform. In old age I read a lot (is there much else I am now able to do?) I may extend my reading into new (to me) authors, but otherwise my existing shelves supply most of my needs. These days I tend to buy "books" on my Kindle. My shelves are already crammed to bursting and the device is so much easier to handle, especially for reading whilst eating.
DRIVING QUICKLY BUT LEGALLY: Driving and riding motorcycles has been my life (and work). Since the strokes I have changed my SAAB for a small runabout (Toyota Yaris Verso) and my 1000cc BMW has become a small twist and go scooter (Honda SH125i). I can no longer drive or ride more than about 80 miles due to arthritis and speed, once so wonderfully enjoyed, can be a strain and confusion, so I "poodle", avoiding motorways.
WRITING STYLE: Not something I have ever considered until blogging introduced me to an ex editor (RR) who has caused me to consider punctuation and adjectives! (now is that exclamation mark really necessary?)
MATHEMATICS: Absolutely my most hated subject at school. I could never see the point of quadratic equations although arithmetic and geometry have always been of interest.
SHYNESS WITH WOMEN: Problematic when young but age has made me easy going.
FRUIT: I have only ever really liked cherries. However my strokes have left me with weak peristalsis so I add grapes to my morning bran flakes (to disguise their cardboard consistency/flavour) and eat a green Granny Smith apple with a small dish of prunes each day. The apple to disguise the cloying sweetness of the essential prunes.
CONCISE BLOG LISTS: Like yours - reducing before my eyes. The high days of blogging were in the early days of this century.
I will add one more of my own and definitely a plus.
ELECTRICALLY ASSISTED BICYCLES: All my life I have ridden and enjoyed cycling. I am a life member of the Cyclists' Touring Club (now having transmogrified into the "woke" Cycling UK) and raced and club-rode when younger. The strokes meant I could no longer manage it, but ebikes have meant I can continue quietly to ride and enjoy this beloved corner of England. They have been a saviour of sanity (I so much enjoy being out in the open air) and the action of pedalling keeps my arthritic joints reasonably supple
Avus: Congratulations but I feel I must be a little cruel. My list, as usual, was limited to 300 words. Yours topped out at 707. Writing is more than punctuation and adjectives. Being concise is, by implication, sympathising with the reader. Not all bloggers feel this is necessary. And, no, the screamer is unnecessary
DeleteOne or two points. I too hated maths at school. Later the RAF forced me to learn electronics via the threat of grievous punishment. This meant understanding concepts that could only be expressed in maths. Note "expressed"; maths is a language and wonderfully inarguable.
A thermionic valve does something; one measures this something and transfers the measurements to graph paper; the result is a hysteresis curve (an S-shape fatter in the middle). One may tinker with this shape and arrive at a spec for a valve that does "a different something". Thus reality may be represented long before glass is blown to contain the valve's inners. I was never going to be fluent but, as with difficult poetry, I could allow myself to be entranced .
A world where peaches, apricots, bananas, figs, pineapples, Braeburns, pears, blackberries, cranberries, strawberries, raspberries, etc, etc, are merely parts of a still life. It sure simplifies the shopping list.
Driving for me is locomotion. For you it seems to be a sequence of different makes of cars. Ownership rather than movement.
You say: The high days of blogging were in the early days of this century. In effect the past is better than the present. I can understand the byproducts of illness and I sympathise. But your brain still works. Are you ruling out a further epiphany which you may feel tempted to describe? Another insight? A new funny? A modified emotion?
I think if we attain the privilege of growing older, we continuously have metamorphosis... some good, some bad, some entirely subjective as to if it's better, or not? *LOL* In this Decade I've now attained I see lots of things I do differently, some of it is even Okay, perhaps better? I will assume, based on my Nanna and Mom reaching their 80's, that if I'm as fortunate, I may change even more each Decade I get to survive. I am very much becoming my Maternal Ancestors in so many ways already. *Winks*
ReplyDeleteBohemian: Since I have already achieved old age I was more into saying what had happened rather than what might. Metamorphosis (change of shape) was on the cards and so we both adopted the 5/2 diet in June 2013 and have kept it up. In my case I have more or less remained the same shape I had then, and am able to confirm this when I buy new underpants. However drink is the curse of diets and no doubt there has been some backsliding. I don't weigh myself regularly now.
DeleteI would like to complete my fifth novel Rictangular Lenses (intentional misspelling) if I can. At 52,000 words I'm about halfway through but progress has been terribly slow compared with the previous four novels. This snail-like pace has had the worrying effect of making other endings tempting. Here's a para written in the last week or so:
The journey from Lindsay’s flat in Shepherds Bush to the rectory took much longer, involved three forms of public transport. As a London dweller she had got along without buying a car; all very well until she was compelled to step out of The Great Wen’s magic circle. Buy a car, then? Well, perhaps. A car that befitted her status? Perhaps not. The initial cost, the upkeep, the need for protected parking, the deterioration and the pathetic usage added up to an unacceptably illogical figure. A hired car with chauffeur made far more sense. With the added benefit of being able to work as she travelled. The twenty-year-old Bentley came with the appropriate status, enhanced by a back-seat cabinet with a cut-glass decanter and two matching glasses. But always empty.
I find cutting out whole paragraphs to be somewhat thrilling. It is fun to realize what once seemed important isn't even necessary. "Fun," of course, isn't the right word. I should come up with a better one; however, I just woke up. I need more coffee.
ReplyDeleteColette: If I were in a pedagogic mode I might pose the question: Why stop at one para? Or two? Or all of them?
DeleteI'm feeling purified, shriven, quite quite holy. Before lunch I drafted the verse that appears in the most recent post. Eating an egg mayo sandwich I asked: the draft is episodic, why not turn it into a narrative? I dismantled the draft end to end and found some alternative ways of saying things. It isn't necessarily good, but from my point of view it is, I think, original. A good justification for hacking.
Goodness me, Mr Robinson, you've left your Northern roots far behind. A bottle of wine for more than £35, no wonder the latest novel is taking longer than usual to reach a conclusion!
ReplyDeleteGarden: Expensive wine doesn't leave you drunker, just poorer. A relative term, though. What else should I spend the surplus cash on?
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