Aging is a weird thing.  Don’t you think?  Aside from all the changes one might expect, there seems to be at least as many more that are a complete surprise.  And I am constantly surprising myself.

I am not just talking physical and mental changes though they do tend to mostly manifest that way.  I am also talking about shifting phases-in-life, stages, perspectives, attitudinal shifts……..things that are more philosophical or intellectual in nature……….

I like to think of myself as open-minded and flexible – a liberally minded fellow who has enough years and experiences to still have some opinions but few, if any of them, are cast in stone.  And then, of course, I write a blog on politics and a whole lot of my old biases pop to the fore.  Surprise.

That is a form of calcification, a ‘learned response’ to stimulus.  Pavlovian, if you will.  But, then later, re-reading your own writing, seeing your own ‘automatic response-to-stimuli’, well, that is a different kind of thing again.  Reflective.  Contemplative.  It just might be a slightly different consciousness.  I dunno, but it comes with age.

I still get youth-like feelings.  I still get a visceral response about the mere mention of the Social Credit Party, for instance, and I am pretty sure they have been deeply interred for almost twenty or so years.  I can still see the frozen, plastic, insincere smile of Grace McCarthy like a rigor-mortis grimace in nightmares.  And Bill VanderZalms Colgate countenance still haunts the news even today.

These people are like the three witches in Macbeth for me.  No real role in the current state of affairs but somehow fitting in the shadows.  “Double, double, toil and trouble.”  What a Nightmare on Elm Street they are!

Hard to remain open and flexible when you are haunted so frequently by the past.  Still, I try.

But, I slip into that ‘curmugeon state’ pretty easily………..

“Don’t get me started about DERA/COPE!  The NDP!  The Liberals (all their variations on that Chameleon-based philosophy)!  Mind you, most of those bastards are all dead.  I really should let it go.  It all truly is a closet full of ghastly skeletons that no longer requires my attention”. 

Whew!…….gasp…..count to ten…….breathe……..1……….2………gasp……..3…

So, you see?  Aging, in this case, is seeing your habits, your reflex feelings as being ‘old’ and yet, ‘seeing that whole thing clearly, too’ and hoping it is somehow a bit of growth.

Hard to explain.

Another ‘aging’ thing is one’s sense of personal power on those bigger stages.  One eventually tends to get a broader sense of what constitutes meaningful influence or change and what power and control means with the passage of time……and how there actually isn’t any…..well, not very much, anyway………and how things might seem to change now and then with immense Herculean effort but still, over the long haul, remain so much the same.

And the older person is not so sure if that is a good thing or a bad one.

I have come to learn that attempting to exert power over others is stupid, transient-at-best, ethereal/imaginary-in-your-own-mind and often pointless, really.  Plus Sal wouldn’t have any of it.  Ever.  99% of those so influenced just keep their mouths shut and walk away.  And everything else including your blood, sweat and tears just eventually washes away with the rain.

And that’s if you are doing good stuff!

And that’s if you know what good stuff is!

One eventually learns to let go of much of it.  Purposeful short term memory loss.  Late onset ADHD.  Lot of us old people get that.  Some even feign deafness.  Must be a survival mechanism.

Even the world-altering actions of such monsters as Hitler are being quickly erased from the current mindset.  Not many people feel influenced by WWll anymore.  (Strangely enough, I still feel the effects a great deal but that is another blog)

We find it harder and harder to remember because we find it harder and harder to think, to read, to learn and, with aging, to retain.  Or even to have someone to talk to about it.

Vast numbers of Canadians have no recollection of anything except, perhaps, hockey stats and what they had for dinner last night.  And they choose to have that state of mind on purpose.  History and even personal experiential perspective are just not big interests in today’s faster-than-understanding world.  Or maybe it is the faster-than-I-care world.

Or maybe it is a faster-than-I-can-afford-to-divert-from world.

Whatever. BIG pictures seem too big for most people.  And, the older person wonders, “…maybe they are?”

“History, old man?  That was then.  What have you got to entertain me with now?”

Here’s a fun game: go up to your younger co-worker or neighbour or brother-in-law and ask them if they think Keynes or Friedman had a bigger influence on the current financial system or was it more likely the lesser-but-more-recent efforts of Greenspan?  Then, as they try to process that question, add, “Or do you think the Sens should try to exempt them from the salary cap?”  

You’ll get……“Geez, man.  I don’t know.  What are you having for dinner tonight?”

But it may not be the world that is all at fault.  It could be me and this aging thing.  I may have just started out with too much testosterone and too few wars on which to spend it.  And now I don’t have either.  When I was young, I felt that I was just a few strategic moves away from running the world.  At 64, I am mildly surprised the dogs will do as I say.  It has always been tough to get your testosterone synched with the rest of the world.

Trouble is, I still have a bit of ‘snarl’ in me. Even if it lacks any power to influence.  Picture a very old, nasty, fat Chihuahua who still feels Mexican.

I expected to get a bit creaky as I aged.  ‘Specially my knees.  I even kind of expected to get a bit stupider, if for no other reason than I no longer feel the need to keep up, to be hip.  There just isn’t the drive to follow trends and fashions anymore.  Frankly,  a 3x t-shirt is the perfect fashion item for me now.  And a remote with big buttons helps. Some things were anticipated.

But that dumb and dumber feeling is because brain cells die by the gazillions in men after 60 and many of us didn’t come with too many to spare in the first place.  We’re now running on a quarter of a tank if not empty.  So, we have ‘snarl’ but no power, thoughts but shallow ones and huge perspectives on which to place tiny points of view.  Like a Chihuahua.

Put more bluntly: It seems to me that many of my contemporaries are walking around with their dried up walnut-like brains quietly rolling around in an ever-more roomy space.  They can’t find their keys.  They can’t finish their sentences, some are even piddling on the rug and I forgot what they were trying to say, anyway.

Oh yeah.  I remember now.  They were telling me the hockey score and what they had for dinner last night.