If we were to mark today, the present moment, as a single point along a straight chronological timeline, to the left of it are all that had already happened and to the right are all that are yet to come. Imagine that line as one long stick horizontally in front of you. The first thing you will notice is that the present moment is either lopsidedly long to the left or the right of the stick.
To a young kid, if he or she were to hold the stick at the present moment, it would be lopsidedly short to the left and lopsidedly much longer to the right. He or she would like it that way because it means that so little has yet happened in the past and that there is a long future ahead to the right of that stick. On the other hand, as we age, the left side of the stick will be lopsidedly much longer relative to the right because, well, we've been around that long already, which brings us to the proverbial good news, bad news, in a manner of speaking. The good news is that we have lived long, we've experienced a good deal of living; the bad news is that to the right of that stick is a shorter future, if not already too short. But does it really have to be good news, bad news?
No one can know where that present moment is relative to the right or left of the stick. In other words we can never know where the exact center point is, where the stick is perfectly in equilibrium because we can never know how much there is to the right of it, even if we know how long to the left it had been (events that have already happened in our lives). Obviously, as we advance in age, we can predictably claim with certainty that the right side of that stick is definitely getting relatively shorter. By the day, in fact.
But that is not a bad thing really.
The other side of aging is not that grim. For many of us, the left side of that stick means we made it thus far and it's been a long ride. The right side of that stick are actually bonus points. We must claim those for as long and as much as we are able to. Many others, the less fortunate among us, who have not moved much from the left along the stick when their life's journey ended, did not and will not get to use the bonus points at all.
How are we to make use of the bonus points at the other side of aging?
I met Lamar over two years ago, before Covid19. He was sitting, rather awkwardly on the locker room bench as I passed him on my way to the shower after a swim at the pool. His head was down, shoulders hunched, and he was kind of leaning left but not moving. When I came back from the shower, he was still there on the exact same position. I approached him and asked if he was alright. He said he was fine and that he appreciated my checking up on him. His speech was labored, lacking eloquence but easily understood. He stood up gingerly, all six-foot-three if he stood erect, and we started talking some more. I can't help but notice that he had some skeletal problems where his neck was almost permanently skewed to his left shoulder with very little flexibility to turn his head. He had been retired like me, after a career of teaching at some college in Northern California. He introduced himself - Lamar - and I told him mine. He said, "OK, I will remember your name". He explained what his technique was at remembering. I decided then that I had better remember his name too, using the technique he just taught me in case we bump into each other again, .
It was three weeks later when I saw him again, at the lobby of the fitness center. Sure enough he remembered my name. He told me the name of the manager of the club who usually sat at the front desk. I felt bad that I didn't even bother to know the manager's name myself who often checked everybody in at the front desk.
Lamar may have been physically impaired but his memory was still sharp. We saw each other a few times more and then for months I never saw him. Then he showed up again. He told me he had a heart attack. He went on to say that when he felt the symptoms - tightness on the chest and sweating - he drove himself to the hospital. He had a double bypass and now he is back. Still driving to the gym by himself.
Let me tell another anecdote. This other gentleman uses the pool as I do except he doesn't swim. He walks back and forth, using the swim lane for a sort of aquatic walking exercise. We started talking because once I asked if I could share the lane with him (all lanes were used). We talked for a bit after I was finished with my 30-minute swim. He was a retired accountant, barrel chested and in a lot better shape than Lamar. He was a regular gym goer until about for over a month when I didn't see him. When I saw him again he told me in nitty-gritty detail that he had a nasal surgery, as a result of some serious sinus infection. However, the next four, five times whenever there was an occasion to chat he would still be talking about the same surgery and post complications as if he was telling it to me for the first time. It was weird because he would be telling it with the same detail like the first time. Come to find out he has re-told the same story repeatedly to at least one other person at the pool.
Those are two of what could fall under the category of the other side of aging and perhaps a few other categories in between. Lamar, though quite physically affected, his mental acuity was undiminished. He kept up with what was going on in the world and he had a nuanced opinion about them. The pool walker, while physically robust for a retiree, seems to get stuck in some kind of a memory loop, for lack of a term since I am not a psychologist. But clearly the surgery must have been a major life event for him, finding it difficult to let go. But so did Lamar.
The other side of aging, to the right of that stick, is inevitably where we are all heading. Along that route there could still be a few stations and some stops, before the final destination.
I learned from Lamar and from that 76-year-old lady seventeen years ago who showed me how to swim better. She first said to practice, practice and learn as much from other better swimmers I encounter at the pool. I did that exactly and one I couldn't forget was was what one gentleman told me about two years ago. He was actually coaching a young swimmer at the pool. He gave me some pointers and he corrected a couple of things I was doing wrong. He said, "You, me, countless others are not going to be Michael Phelps, but you can be when compared to yourself a few years, six months, a week ago, if you keep learning. Keep at it and look back to compare your present self to many versions of yourself, swimming and practicing, over a period of time and you will be Michael Phelps, albeit among your many selves". I guess what he meant was that we and anyone can continue to do better if we keep on learning.
There is no statute of limitation to learning is another way of putting it. And because learning (unless you are thinking acrobatics or rock climbing) is purely a mental thing, the mind will take you everywhere, if you let it.
Learning from many folks along the way, I summed it up via this acronym: CREATE (in keeping with how to commit information to memory).
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