When Age Is Really A Number

"Age is just a number", we often  hear.  Sometimes it is  simple bravado, sometimes it is merely a way to think positively, or often a way for folks to brush off the accepted meaning of old age and the inevitable realization that there is little we can do about getting old. If there is anything we could do  at all, it is to ignore the dreaded calendar.  After all, it is just one  out of every 365-calendar days of the year that seems to be a source of prickly annoyance, once we get past the 40th anniversary of what is a yearly recurring milestone of our existence. 

Corollary to "age is just a number" thing, we've managed to redefine or move the markers by saying, 50 is the new 40. Last I heard, 60 is the new 50.  People are living longer, so others make it conceivable to think 70 "ain't so bad".  Clearly, George Burns, Betty White attested to that and now Clint Eastwood is proving that there is still a good chunk of "Dirty Harry" in him at 92. Meanwhile, Dick Van Dyke who was born on Dec. 13, 1925, still goes to the gym, and still does a slow motion version of a scene from Chitty, Chitty Bang Bang.  Just think, in three years Dick Van Dyke will hold a rare 3-digit age code - 100!  A 2-digit age code that begins at 9 is huge enough and those already at the 7 or 8 age codes are  a 3-generational phenomenon by themselves. Those are celebrities, of course, but we know there are a lot more out there - ordinary folks who get well past beyond the minimum 3-digit age code.

Now, we may have to switch to, "Age is truly a number".  Why?  Well,  the cartoon below, far from a denial, it is actually a resolute response without denying the number.

(Caption): "I used to be old, too, but it wasn't my cup of tea".

If the desire is to live longer, or even just long enough, it is best to have accumulated a number or the number, which means this: each morning that we wake up, realizing we are able to get up, and we do indeed, then get to spend the day, productively or not, watch or at least imagine another sunset, have another dreamy or dreamless night, and to wake up again into another morning, the numbers add up.  The higher that number becomes, the longer we've held on to the ticket to long life, which is to grow old. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

The road to living longer is paved with time, but there is no short cut.  We sometimes encounter a detour, a rerouting, a temporary rest stop, but for as long as the journey continues, expect that with each mile covered, the numbers add up and we want to stay on that road, where ever it leads. George Burns said it best,

"I'm very pleased to be here. Let's face it, at my age I'm very pleased to be anywhere".

Oh, but to be young again! Really? Unless one inherited oodles and oodles of money at birth, there is little of it among the young.  Compound interest only works with time.  99% of the time the number (i.e. savings, 401Ks, etc.) that matters is directly proportional to how much time there was to get to it  and to get to it is a matter of how much we've aged.  So, clearly, age is really a number. 

If time waits for no one, you don't want to be left behind.  You may choose not to board the train but you  have already paid for the ticket.  You might as well enjoy the ride; and the conversation with fellow passengers. At this point in your lives you have quite a glossary of topics to sustain conversation after conversation in the medical field.  If you are not in search of a cure you are dispensing it. You are past talking about replacing the old dishwasher or washing machine, and clearly your bodies have far more mileage than your cars. You no longer worry about the car battery. The question is remembering when  your pacemaker will need one.  You still know your ABC's but you are a lot more conversant about COPD. You used to be hip among friends when it came to Rock and Roll and Boogie Woogie.  Now, you are thinking about getting new Teflon-lined stainless steel hips .  Just kidding.  Let's keep on with the numbers.

Life, at this point, is all about accumulating as many more sunrises and sunsets and enjoying what's in between, including the not-so-obligatory nap in the afternoon. Hobbies do not have deadlines.  Speed reading is not required because a good book must be read slowly. Slow-cooked meals are tastier and more tender and energy saving.  Not from the cooking but from physical energy saved from not having to exert too much in chewing.

Know this too. We make note of celebrities getting into their nineties but here is a short list of ordinary people who are still living at 108: Dorothy Sellers of Freeport, Long Island, NY; Carmen Slough, Arizona; Beatrice Chieko Muranaka, Hawaii;  Ireland's oldest living woman, Mairin Hughes; WWII veteran Chester Edgar Wilson, KY; Ron Schwartz, WI; and on and on.  By the way, that is just those at a specific age of 108, not counting those at between 101 and 107, and many past that.

So, we shouldn't dread The Number. We should embrace it. Ignore the past because there is absolutely nothing that we could do there; the future is where we will be spending the rest of our lives.

SILVER LININGS

If there is ever the one single phrase in the English language that epitomizes positive thinking, the "silver lining" must be it. It is a carrier of hope even when things seem to have turned desperate; it could also be the key that will open up a door or many other doors when one was shut so badly to one's face; it is serendipity in the midst of unknowable expectations; it is that prize behind "Door No. 3".

What is the origin of the phrase? And how often does the concept or the actual phenomenon of silver linings manifest themselves?

It is apparently from Milton's 1843 poem when he wrote in "Comus", "where the silver lining is the light of the moon shining from behind the cloud.

'To which Thomas Warton added the commentary: "When all succor seems to be lost, Heaven unexpectedly presents the silver lining of a sable cloud to the virtuous."

Would it be too bold to declare that the silver lining has been the essence of the universe all along? Or that the silver lining was baked into all of God's creations and that The Creator made it so that there is a silver lining where darkness dwells. 

If there is such a thing as the DNA of the universe, then the strands that hold the universal genes must be made of silver linings. This will require some explaining, before we get into silver linings that impact us personally.

Though it was there even from the true beginning of creation, that is much too farther back in time to look at it.  We may begin about two thirds through the age of the universe.  It was about four billion years ago when the universe was by then already nine billion years old.  Our sun was just another star out of several others that were created after a super nova explosion.  Any explosion seems a cause of torment but our first silver lining was the birth of our sun amidst a swirling mass of energized plasma.  Along with  our sun were  planets jockeying for their orbital positions around it.  At last they settled into separate orbits, different size marbles careening at thousands of miles per hour, turning on their axes individually along the same plane similar to an old vinyl record on a turn table.  But one planetoid about the size of Mars bumped into the third planet. The collision caused the third planet to tilt on its axis like a leaning top twirling several degrees from the vertical of the turntable's plane. The massive collection of debris from the collision began to collect into a smaller ball, while the rest of the mass ultimately fell back into the third planet.

Silver linings?  Several, actually. That smaller ball became our moon. What good could have come out of a tilted third planet - earth? It is because of the tilt that the northern and southern hemispheres have four seasons. But what about the equatorial region.  Well, it may not have the four seasons but it also means that it has an all year long growing season for vegetation. It makes possible for tropical plants and rain forests to thrive continuously, thus the vast forests are earth's ultimate carbon scrubbers, gobbling up CO2, spitting out oxygen.  The equatorial region gets much of the heat from the sun and together with its faster linear speed relative to the area closer to the poles, it is where hurricanes and typhoons originate. But, is there a silver lining with hurricanes? They are bad because we are here now to experience their ferocity.  But hurricanes and typhoons are like giant and powerful sprinklers, hosing away dead and weak vegetation and surrounding debris and general clean up of the environment. It may only sound facetious but indeed hurricanes and typhoons are part of a huge hydro cleaning crew. These powerful wind generators are solely responsible for spreading living organisms from the mainland to what used to be uninhabited and isolated islands in the middle of oceans. The moon regulates the rise and fall of ocean tides - a phenomenon that is unmatched in regulating the workings of oceans, rivers and bays.  It is clear the Creator had put in place regular and recurring mechanisms that make nature work as it does today.

Lightning was around from the moment the four forces of nature defined themselves as separate entities over 13 billion years ago. Lightning was here when our earth was just a molten ball.  Our early ancestors held them as fearful manifestations of the power of the gods. It is actually more than that.  

"With up to a billion volts of electricity, lightning burns at 50,000 degrees, making it hotter than the surface of the sun. When lightning strikes, it tears apart the bond in airborne nitrogen molecules. Those free nitrogen atoms then have the chance to combine with oxygen molecules to form a compound called nitrates. 

Once formed, the nitrates are carried down to the ground by rainfall. There, plants can absorb the powerful natural fertilizer and have any grit and grime washed away".

That lightning flash we see and the thunder clap that follows is literally the silver lining behind the dark ominous clouds.

67 million years ago, earth, teeming with life, was hit by an asteroid the size of Mt. Everest.  It was a devastating extinction of species, really bad news for the dinosaurs that were the dominant species for the last 160 million years prior.  There were survivors.  One of those were the early small mammals that barely eked out a living in the shadows of the giant reptiles.  The silver lining?  Those mammals were the precursors of our early ancestors.  But in the process did it not cost the destruction  of so many living organisms, primarily the extinction of dinosaurs?  Well, not all the dinosaurs perished.  The tiny species that survived had more tricks up their sleeves. Some of them not only survived but went on to dominate the world above them - the ocean of air.  They evolved into birds. The tiny velociraptors and today's eagles and hawks maintain the classification of raptors. They were and still are formidable predators.  There was a silver lining for dinosaurs.  Predators are regulators for a healthy eco system, balancing the population of prey animals to the vegetation that support them.

Speaking of predator and prey, there is one clear example of why silver linings are behind every natural balancing act.  The cheetah and the gazelle evolved  to be the speediest predator and prey, respectively, on the African savannah.  The slower gazelles died off as they were being caught and only the fastest could pass on their genes; meanwhile, cheetahs that could not keep up also died off and only the speediest could go on to multiply. Since then the speed race between prey and predator went on for millennia.  As a check and balance, the cheetah's success rate is a mere 37%; although it is better than 50% when going after old and/or sickly gazelles, which by the way is a silver lining because only the healthiest go on to outrun their predators and live on to propagate the species.

What about harmful microbes, like viruses and bacteria, and the plague?  Microbes, researchers have uncovered, were likely responsible for our development as a species.  Not only that they triggered many mutations that led to beneficial adaptations and our ultimate physical development, they are a daily ally, residing in our gut throughout our entire lives, performing all kinds of functions - from digestion to regulating some of the workings within our bodies, including training our immune system into a formidable force against other microscopic foreign bad actors.

The bubonic plague that ravaged Europe, killing 25% of the population, was singularly responsible for the early eradication of slavery, serfdom, while enabling land distribution from the clutches of feudal systems, the beginning of fair wages and landownership made possible away from dukes, earls and royal connections.  It was when a huge population of servants and farm workers fell to the plague that forced land barons and landowners to hire and pay workers who were in great demand.  Some landowners were forced to give up some of their lands to ordinary people who later made up the farming industry.  The plague also brought about better sanitation and what came to be the beginnings of health care systems.  There was always a silver lining when we care to look.

If we examine our lives, we will find that a series of silver linings paved much of the way to get us where we are today.  Look back, look closely. And we do need to look closely.  Often, we will likely see that so many things happened, so many people, and many circumstances in our past opened up certain paths for us.  We may not have noticed it then, or we failed to see it, but every challenge and difficulty we faced, were met because somebody may have helped, opportunities opened up, we developed the strength and resolve on our own from somewhere, sometime, but those were all silver linings.  We just didn't see them that way then.  There may have been roadblocks, detours and side trips but most may actually have led to other opportunities, different ways of looking at those we either over looked or set aside that turned to be fortuitous in the end.

Actually, it is looking out for silver linings that make possible for positive outlook and attitude when something not too good happens.  Behind all the chaos we face is the gentle musical tinkling of a silver lining unfurling.  Think of it this way.  If we look out for it, anticipate it, even hope for it, we have just eliminated the one great hindrance in life - worry.  Worry is that thick impervious backing behind the drapes that blocks our view to so many things out there behind the window where perhaps a silver lining is unfurling.

This is worth believing: God did provide the essence of silver linings to the universal DNA from the moment of creation. 

The Camel's Nose

Modern era governments have come this far through a series of evolutionary paths that humans went about to organize themselves.  Kingdoms and monarchies that depended solely on the skill and power of an individual who then passed it on through the hierarchical  bloodline, have been gradually replaced by a process where the power is generated from the bottom up. At least, that is how it was supposed to work.  Democracies are definitely that but even socialism, communism and totalitarianism are still required to wield their power through the people, albeit, forcibly either through coercive or veiled subtle means.

Let us not forget that true democracies were born out of establishing individual freedom so that in the process people are allowed to express their views unhindered and to be able to pursue their livelihood towards economic freedom within certain sets of rules and laws agreed to and with concordance from the people.  Such rules and laws must be confined optimally towards fairness and equal distribution of rights and privileges but none of those must favor one group or disallow another for reasons of race and gender.  All of that encapsulated in the nobility of a true justice system.

The American style democracy had a unique history in that, while there was a clear majority of skin color in the beginning, there was diversity of culture and national origins from where they came.  Later on, as the word spread around the world about what was then a new nation, more diversity of people came over on their own while many others were brought in by force. It did not take long for the new nation to go through another evolutionary path by way of The Civil War. Incredibly, democracy was preserved and renewed.

Today it seems that it must endure another evolution. It might seem subtle except that this nation may find itself divided by an ever widening chasm right in the middle.  Long gone were the days when a sitting President from one party and the Speaker of the House from another would get together for an early evening beer after a grueling and contentious debate between opposing legislators in the Hall of Congress.  That was 38 years ago - today's generation cannot relate to - when Ronald Reagan was President and Tip O'Neil was Speaker. That was when politics worked as politicians worked together.  Today, we have politics in great turmoil, a democracy in a delicate balance, except that the two scales are weighted down with seemingly irreconcilable differences. 

Each new administration has every right and all the prerogative to shape the agenda of how it will run the country.  How  was it different after the 2020 election? A year before that election, I wrote, "In Awe of Climate", not truly realizing that what I feared actually came to be:

"Yesterday, Sept. 4, 2019, 425 days from next year's U.S. 2020 election, ten presidential aspirants gathered for a Climate Town Hall for hours. It and almost all the next get together and discussions to follow will be pivotal in one particular way. One of these candidates could conceivably shape the critical agenda for running the next government in case the present administration is voted out of office. It shall be a huge switch in policy because as one of the candidates said last night, "Every Policy Should Be Informed by Climate Change."

Well, what do we have today? The new political party is in power and what we have is, "Every Policy Is Horribly Informed by Climate Change."

I would rather not use the old and tired cliché, so it is with great trepidation that I must: the new administration has succumbed to and had been hijacked by the "perfect storm" of young minority member-legislators of far left wing climate activists and hyper active woke generation. When the then presidential candidate, now President, declared to put the U.S. oil industry out of business, it was a pandering signal to the climate activists of the party that he followed through immediately upon taking office.

It was another clear example of my favorite analogy about reaching the height of insanity when the administration curtailed oil exploration and production here and then go out shopping for the same commodity from Venezuela and Iran; both run by totalitarian regimes.  Shamelessly planning to fly to and visit Saudi Arabia to beg for more oil to come this way after calling that country's regime a pariah to the world during his political campaign is impenitent political amnesia.

Enough about oil, lest my U.S. readers are reminded of the inevitable pain at the gas pump.

In an ideal world the governed expects and gets what the government provides - safety, peace of mind, protection from those who will do them harm (foreign or domestic), general well being and the freedom to express their views without fear.  The government may take from the people in the form of taxes to be able to provide all of the above.

The California Energy Commission now mandates against the use of natural gas for cooking, water  and home heating for all new home and apartment constructions in the name of climate change.  Again, clearly unencumbered by careful logical or common sense thought, this is despite the fact that all electricity to provide for all the appliances are produced mostly by fossil fuel burning plants.  Add to that the mandate to outlaw the sale of combustion engines in the State in the next few years to come will exacerbate the problem.  But, ""Every Policy Should Be Informed by Climate Change."

When Homeland Security created the Disinformation Board, the 1st Amendment Right on free speech was both the intended and non-intended consequence of another ill informed policy.  Anyone who remembers reading Orwell's "1984" in high school or college will find it more than a devilish amusement that a more than real Ministry of Truth had been unfurled out of the fictional pages of a dystopian novel into the inner sanctum of government in 2022.

Now the 2nd Amendment is on the block.  Perhaps not entirely  but it is another thing eyed for curtailment legislatively.

The people will be best served to notice these little things chipping away subtly but slowly before realizing much had been taken. First it is the gas stove, the internal combustion engine, etc. 

Slowly but surely there is a trending desire of taking away from the people by a government created to be a provider and not a taker. We could be witnessing what once was a desert fable about letting the camel's nose inside the tent during a sandstorm.  Soon the camel is fully inside​,​ ​its master pushed away outside into the raging blast of the proverbial sand and wind of woke-ism and the most powerful force of the​​ ​political ​human mind - self delusion.

"The camel's nose is a metaphor for a situation where the permitting of a small, seemingly innocuous act will open the door for larger, clearly undesirable actions".

Totalitarianism anywhere it exists began as a camel's nose that slowly worked its way from one bureaucrat to the next, from one political operative to another, then through the entire political party apparatus until all there is inside that tent is the entire camel.

An entire country could lose its original collective spirit of exceptionalism not from a weakened general populace but from the insidious corruption of its political system by the oligarchy made up of politicians.  Beware of the camel's nose for there is a sand storm brewing.  

   

In The Midst of a Madding World

For those willing to take the time to look, they will see that we - in the USA - is in the thick of a madding crowd.  Not just in the nook and cranny but even in the halls of Congress, for there is a growing illness infecting the nation's psyche. Let's begin with the slightly benign, though no less debilitating.

In the House Judiciary Committee Hearing, on March 1, 2022:

Aimee Arrambide, the executive director of the abortion advocacy group Avow Texas, was asked by Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) what she believes the definition of a woman is.

"I believe that everyone can identify for themselves," Arrambide said.

When asked if she then believed that men could therefore get pregnant and have abortions, her response was a simple "yes." Bishop did not push the topic any further.

In a joint Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing two months earlier, the nominee for the recently vacated Associate Justice of the Supreme Court declined to answer a question on how she would define a woman, declaring she is not a biologist. That "duck and weave" of a response was out of avoiding a backlash from the liberal and woke politicians and media if she answered in a singular way that would have described the natural male/female definition of the two sexes. 

Madding (Old English)

adjective:

1. acting madly or senselessly; insane; frenzied:

a quiet place far from the madding crowd.

making mad:

2. a madding grief.

Madding USA might as well sound like, "Made in USA", because only here that a school district had authorized the placement of Tampons in the boys restrooms.

May 6, 2022 .. In July 2021, Democratic Gov. Kate Brown signed the controversial “Menstrual Dignity Act,” which requires all K-12 schools to provide free ..

“Starting next year (2022-2023), products will be available in all restrooms (male, female and all-gender) in every PPS building where education occurs,” the Portland school district said in a 2021 statement.

“To ensure timely compliance, PPS ordered 500 dispensers. Dispensers have been installed in all elementary and middle school girls’ restrooms, and more will be installed in all remaining bathrooms, including boys’ restrooms, next year,” it said.

Oregon is the same state, same governor, that "will no longer require its students to demonstrate proficiency in math, reading and writing in order to earn a high school diploma..".  Students will get a "modified diploma".  

If one is looking for an example of the height of insanity, Mount Everest would seem like a molehill compared to how far up the la la cloud  the State of Oregon had soared.

Meanwhile, in Kiel, Wisconsin, three elementary students were charged by the school district for sexual harassment for not using the proper pronouns to refer to another student, since the latter declared to be referred to "they" in place of "he" or "she".  This pluralization of a singular gender identity is clearly an insane destruction of proper grammar, at a critical time when students are struggling to adhere to the tenets of good writing, reading and math.

Some schools had already disbanded the honors classes for fear of offending those not in it. In many graduation ceremonies we no longer hear about valedictorians and salutatorians.  It will offend the rest of the graduating class.

We wonder why China, Singapore, South Korea and a lot more other countries are outperforming U.S. high school proficiencies in science and math. 

Now, for some of the malignancy that is dividing the country further and weakening it down as represented by no less than a disconnected view  the Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen took, when she declared:

“I believe that eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades”.

In effect what she said was, "that banning abortion would be “very damaging” for the economy by reducing women’s ability to balance their careers and their families".

She doubled down even further, “It means that children will grow up in poverty and do worse themselves,” Yellen responded. “This is not harsh. this is the truth.”

Fortunately, a sitting Black Senator from S. Carolina was able to balance the Senate hearing with one profound statement: 

“I’ll just say that as a guy raised by a Black woman in abject poverty, I am thankful to be here as a United States senator,” he said.

True story, one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with a black woman who was at the adjoining lane at the pool of the fitness center. She was using the pool as part of her physical therapy post a knee surgery. The conversation led to talking about family.  She has one son that immediately I could tell was much the source of her greatest pride. As a single mother she raised him  since 31 years ago when she was just eighteen.  She went against the advice of many around her to not go through with her pregnancy.  It was the same people around her who blamed her further when at six months old the baby was diagnosed with Down Syndrome.

Her son, whom she describes as not near fully able to function normally, was able to read and write though not at the same pace as the other kids his age growing up, yet is capable of taking care of himself. He is often asked to "deliver a sermon" at their local Baptist church from time to time.

I can tell from her beaming eyes and and broad smiling face how proud she is of that child. She must have sacrificed so much to raise that child while she pursued a vocational career to earn enough to avoid giving him up to foster care early on.  She is 49 now but she still looks at herself as a proud single mom, because that child might be forever childlike but remains the greatest joy of her life.

We can be sure there are countless examples like that but what of the countless more, a hundred times fold, of those whose lives have never seen the dawn of birth, their beating hearts and limbs afloat in motherly cocoons but never had the chance to feel the coolness of the outside air nor the glare of lights outside the womb nor hear the din of voices other than their mothers'.

This issue, mind you, shall be one that will divide the nation further away from where the middle is, almost exactly.  It is so unbelievable that a political system from which this great nation had grown and flourished since its inception almost three centuries ago, buoyed by the rule of the majority, is now divided at the almost unbreachable bulwark of a 50-50 population. 

If this nation could not find a way to re-unite soon, the weakened state of a divided country will open up its belly, infected from within and exposed to all that will be harmful to it from without.