© Charles D. Hayes
One of my greatest fears about aging is
that of becoming lost in the corridors of my own mind. I find the threat of
dementia more terrifying than heart disease or cancer. Recently the World
Health Organization published a report estimating that by 2030, the number of
people with some form of dementia is expected to double and reach 65.7 million
worldwide; 115.4 million people by 2050. The financial burden will be so staggering
as to threaten the very stability of the economy, but that will pale in
comparison to the emotional angst among individuals afflicted and the families
who care for them.
As a nation, America is clearly not
prepared for such an onslaught of helpless human beings. With each passing year,
I am more and more aware of the use-it-or-lose-it slogan with regard to one's
intellectual ability, and yet the science associated with this claim is vague
and uncertain. While it appears there are some things that may stave off
dementia, there is no proof that if you do this or that you can be certain to escape
the onset.
A scientist I’m not, but in my own life
experience I have witnessed individuals who seemed especially vulnerable to
dementia simply because they lost interest in living long before they lost
their intellectual capacity for strenuous thinking. The gradual slide into
dementia that my own parents experienced serves as a constant reminder about what
can happen when one gives up rigorous thinking. At least that's the way it
appears in hindsight.
For these reasons, and because of the
sheer enjoyment that an ever-expanding perspective offers us as aging
individuals, I believe September University is the apt metaphor for the last
few chapters of one's life. One of the most encouraging examples of aging and
staying intellectually active I've come across lately is Edward O. Wilson. His
new book The Social Conquest of the Earth,
is one of his best works, in my view, and it represents the cutting edge of some
very contentious and controversial subjects in evolutionary social science,
namely individual versus group selection. Wilson has been kicking up a fuss
with his peers for decades, and the fact that he is still at it at age 82 is inspiring.
Some recent studies suggest that
exercise may help keep dementia at bay, but so far there is no encouraging news
about the prevention of Alzheimer's. Progress seems stalled, even though the
stakes are so high that nothing short of a Manhattan Project level of research would
seem adequate to meet the challenge and government funding is being increased
substantially.
September
University,
the book, was eight years in the making and has been in print for a couple of
years, but we’re still early in what I have argued will be a visible awakening of
senior activists who are bent on leaving the world a better place for future
generations. Indeed, they’re at it already; they’re just not getting much media
attention. Near the end of this decade, however, I'm betting their actions will
eclipse the media depictions of senior citizens shouting Tea Party slogans and pushing
inarticulate political solutions to problems that haven't been thought through
in depth.
Aristotle argued that the ultimate value
of life depends upon contemplation and that happiness is experienced in large
part as a form of contemplation and reflection. I've always thought that a
great opportunity was missed in America's Declaration
of Independence in that, if it had endorsed the pursuit of wisdom instead of the pursuit of happiness, the path to happiness for
everyone would have been shorter and with better results. Overt attempts to
find happiness often amount to a fool’s journey, because true happiness results
from noble purposes without regard to rewards.
My learning suggests that perspective is
to aging as good health is to one's sense of well-being. The good news is that,
with many years of experience at our back, we have a lot to think about and a
lot of comparisons to make between theory
and practice. So making sense of one's life can be thought of as a rational
method of preparing not to forget.
Apart from the value of human social
relationships as we age, nothing save intellectual perspective gives us what we
need in order to find and experience a sense of meaning that puts our final
chapters of life in context. That framework inevitably brings us back existentially
to the worth of human relationships that may have remained hidden by the
busyness of life circumstance. Perspective represents life's most exhilarating
punctuation mark. Better to leave the world with an exclamation point than a
comma.
KINDLE
Books and EBooks on Amazon:
September University: Summoning Passion for an Unfinished Life
Existential Aspirations: Reflections of a Self-Taught Philosopher
A Novella
Alaska Short Fiction Series for
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