LIVING A LIFE WITH PURPOSE

At Nirvana Tea House and Cafe, September 2024

I had a haircut this week and my barber said that my hair is changing. I'm not losing hair (beyond the same frontal pattern my father had in his 60's), but my hair is becoming thinner and drier as I age. I will turn 64 in a few months and can feel the subtle changes of aging as I approach the transition from mid-life to senior. What does aging mean to me?  I tell people that becoming a parent is no better nor worse than a childless life, it's just different.

The same thing can be said about aging.

On the physical side, recovery takes longer. Sprains and muscle aches are more frequent.  Senses are not as sharp. In my 20's I was a judge for wine competitions in Northern California. Today, I can identify the grape in a wine, but not specific geographies or vintages. All of this does not mean there are limitations on my choice of activities, but it might impact duration and frequency. 25 mile hikes through waist deep snow in subzero temperatures are no longer appealing.

Mentally, the changes are much more subtle. In 1976 I was given a battery of tests when I went to public school for the first time (after 8 years of Catholic education). Part of the testing involved reading a random page from a book and then reciting that page from memory. I was able to do it without significant error. Today I cannot read a page once and recite it verbatim, but I can describe its meaning and relationship to other works by various authors. My capacity to integrate and interpret is much more developed even though my capacity to memorize and compute complex mathematics in my head has faded.   

An AI model is only as good as its training set. The size of my training data is exponentially larger at 64 than 14. The number of life experiences, job roles, and books read means that I can sit next to anyone on a plane and discuss any topic (other than football and rap music) with a degree of competency that makes them believe I'm an expert.     

Aging has given me the experience to know what is likely to work and not work, who is likely to be a collaborator versus a detractor, and what to say/not to say in almost any situation. If there is an area of expertise I don't yet have, I know how to gain that knowledge. And I rapidly sense when it's best to bring in others to solve problems, do tasks, and review work that I'm not qualified to do. I no longer have to be the smartest person in the room, but I do know who are the smart people and how to find them.

As a vegan with no major medical problems (other than the glaucoma I inherited from my parents), it's possible I have 30+ more years of life with a purpose. And when you can bring value to those around you, the thinning hair, diminished senses, and somatic symptoms that last days instead of hours no longer seem important. If I could pick any age in the past 64 years to live, it would be now. Although I may not know what tomorrow will bring, I will know how to deal with it because of the lessons learned on my life journey thus far.

~John D. Halamka