"Because I'm Rich"

In the 1984 movie "All of Me,"wealthy, wheelchair bound Edwina (Lilly Tomlin) asks Roger (Steve Martin), "Guess what I'm going to do?"

"What?" he replies.

"I'm going to come back from the dead."

"Aaahhhh. And what makes you think you can do that?"

Her answer is as simple as it is profound, "Because I'm rich."

I thought of that scene Easter Sunday when I read a front page article in the Washington Post entitled "Tech Titans' Latest Project: Defy Death." Why it was on the front page on Easter Sunday is anyone's guess. Resurrection envy?

The still relatively young men--and it's all men--who have made gazillions of dollars out in Silicon Valley apparently refuse to allow death to cheat them out of enjoying those gazillions and are giving money hand over fist to assorted scientific and medical researchers who believe there is a way to extend their lives almost infinitely.

Emphasis on "their lives." Oh, you and I get to join the everlasting party if we, like the tech boys and Edwina, can answer, "And what makes you think you can do that?" with, "Because I'm rich." None of the treatments will be covered by Medicare.

And there's certainly something attractive to the notion of living for 150, 250, 500 years--as long as we still had the bodies of--what?--thirty- or even fifty-year-olds. Attractive at least on the surface. But as scholar and bioethicist Leon Kass argued in his essay "Ageless Bodies, Happy Souls,"immortality in this life or even the artificial prolongation of this life has more than a few downsides.

Kass writes, referring to another essay he wrote:

...living with our finitude is the condition of many of the best things in human life: engagement, seriousness, a taste for beauty, the possibility of virtue, the ties born of procreation, the quest for meaning. ...the pursuit of perfect bodies and further life-extension will deflect us from realizing more fully the aspirations to which our lives naturally point, from living well rather than merely staying alive. ...a concern with one’s own improving agelessness is finally incompatible with accepting the need for procreation and human renewal: a world of longevity is increasingly a world hostile to children. Moreover, far from bringing contentment, it is arguably a world increasingly dominated by anxiety over health and the fear of death.

A good life after mid-life, as I say in my book, is not about cheating old age, but about making the most of every state of our lives including the days when we're forced to slow down and slow down and slow down.

"Old and In the Way"

It seems passing strange to me, but Washington, DC has an all bluegrass radio station. If you're in the area or want to listen online, it's WAMU's Bluegrass Country 105.5.

Anyway I hit the preset and they were playing one of my favorites: "Old and in the Way" from the album of the same name featuring an all star team of David Grisman (who wrote it), Jerry Garcia, Vassar Clements, John Rowan, and John Kahn.

I quote the chorus in my book Pears, Grapes, and Dates: A Good Life After Mid-Life because I thing it sums up how many of us can begin to feel as time catches up with us. Here's the chorus plus the two verses:

ChorusOld and in the way, that's what I heard them say
They used to heed the words he said, but that was yesterday
Gold will turn to gray and youth will fade away
They'll never care about you, call you old and in the way 

Once I hear tell, he was happy
He had his share of friends and good times
Now, those friends have all passed on
He don't have a place called home
Looking back to a better day, feeling old and in the way
[chorus] 

When just a boy, he left his home
Thought he'd have the world on a string
Now the years have come and gone
Through the streets he walks alone
Like the old dog gone astray, he's just old and in the way
[chorus]

The saddest lyric from my point of view is "He don't have a place called home." The increased individualism in our culture and in our families makes no place called home more and more of a danger. And loneliness will kill you.

As I say in the book, the need to connect with people our own age and of all other ages is a top priority for a good life after mid-life. So don't wait.

Living to be 100

Somehow on Easter Sunday the Washington Post and Parade magazine published articles about living  longer. Hmmmm.

In "Cheater's Guide to Living to 100," Parade featured a new book by journalist Dan Buettner called The Blue Zone Solutions: Eating and Living Like the World's Healthiest People. In addition to talking about eating smart, Buttoner proposes three other solutions that parallel the ideas in my book Pears Grapes and Dates: A Good Life After Mid-Life.

1) Find your tribe--that is, have roots. "Who you hang out with trumps just about everything else when it comes to your health," writes Buttoner. As we get older we need our old friends. We also need, I think, new friends--particularly new, younger friends.

Yesterday we had Easter dinner with our nephew and his family. How refreshing to spend the afternoon with a young couple and their 4-year-old, 3-year-old, and 18-month-old. Between dinner and dessert we walked to the park, chatted, and pushed the kids on the swings. A day well spent.

2) Seek a Purpose. And that purpose has to go beyond entertainment and "spending my kids' inheritance." It is sad to watch people--regardless of their age--entertaining themselves to death. There's no surprise in a study cited in the article indicating, "Having a purpose in life provides a buffer against mortality, no matter your age." It will keep us from feeling "old and in the way" as I put it in my book.

3) Move It. Those who live long don't so much exercise as, "their lifestyles encourage physical activity." That's related to purpose: gardening, baking, walking to the store, chasing grandchildren, walking the dog.

There's a great future in store if we'll grab it and run.

Check out the free download of the first chapter of Pears Grapes and Dates: A Good Life After Mid-Life at my website.

Download Your Free Chapter

Hard to believe, but a friend wants to know whether I'll speak to his marketing class. What I don't know about marketing fills volumes so we'll see how that works out.

At the same time, I can read and learn and the people who seem to know something about selling books indicate that one way to promote a new book is to offer a chapter free. So this morning I put up a free PDF of chapter 1 of Pears, Grapes, and Dates: A Good Life After Mid-Life.

The book is available at CreateSpace and from Amazon for you Amazon Prime members, but this way you can take a peek first.

Loneliness and Life Expectancy

"Ask people what it takes to live a long life," begins the press release from Brigham Young University, "and they’ll say things like exercise, take Omega-3s, and see your doctor regularly."

Then comes the kicker, "Now research from Brigham Young University shows that loneliness and social isolation are just as much a threat to longevity as obesity." And there is no doubt that despite the internet, smart phones, texting, and Skype, people are more lonely than ever.

Tim Smith is professor of counseling psychology and special education at BJU and co-author of the study commented, “Not only are we at the highest recorded rate of living alone across the entire century, but we’re at the highest recorded rates ever on the planet. With loneliness on the rise, we are predicting a possible loneliness epidemic in the future.”

As we get older we can see the roots of loneliness. Children move away. Friends move away or as time continues to pass, friends die. Church attendance is down in America as is involvement for those who do attend on Sunday mornings. We can feel "old and in the way." We can feel that we're a burden on others. Add to that divorces or just unhappy isolated spouses with no energy for renewing their marriage.

It's a recipe for emotional disaster and now we learn a recipe for physical disaster.

The good news is that loneliness can be cured and the problems reversed. According to Smith, "In essence, the study is saying the more positive psychology we have in our world, the better we’re able to function not just emotionally but physically."

And reversing loneliness is more than just a good thing personally. It spreads the health when we engage others who may be lonely--particularly young people who the BJU study found are more vulnerable to the dangers of loneliness than seniors. In fact, the study found, "Although older people are more likely to be lonely and face a higher mortality risk, loneliness and social isolation better predict premature death among populations younger than 65 years."

Loneliness is one of the questions I take on in my new book Pears, Grapes, and Dates: A Good Life After Mid-Life. (Also available at Amazon and soon on Kindle). No one should have to die of loneliness. 

Older and Wiser

This weekend I played golf with Jake, a friend who recently turned eighty. He's had some back problems so he can't hit the ball the way he used to, but he's out there twice a week with his wife or with friends. And while the ball may not go as far as it once did, it usually flies straight as an arrow.

But it wasn't his golf game that impressed me. Jake is thoughtful about his life, wanting to live as full a life as he can. We talked about forgiveness: How do you forgive people who have deeply hurt those who are dearest to you? We talked about goal setting: Where, he asks, do I want to be in five years? We talked about the spiritual life: How do I get closer to God?

He's also genuinely interested in others, listening intently to anything I had to say, wanting to know about my life, my ideas, and my opinions. Which is another way of saying that he hasn't stopped and he won't stop learning. He still retains that sense of wonder in the sense of awe and in the sense of "I wonder...." Despite his age, he sees the world through young eyes.

Jake is cheerful, positive, fun to be around. He's also and most importantly wise. And while I didn't have him in mind for the character of John in my book Pears, Grapes, and Dates: A Good Life After Mid-Life, he's a real life example of what I had in mind. What a pleasure it was to spend time with him and what an inspiration for my own good life after mid-life.

My New Book

Pears, Grapes, and Dates: AGood Life After Mid-Life

This book began as a series of journal entries and grew into a dialogue. It sat around my computer and I've finally published it. 

The book is available now, a Kindle edition is in the works. 

What can we or should we expect from the last (let's be optimistic) third of our lives? For many of us, children are grown, careers are winding down, and this thing they call "retirement" looms. Rather than just slipping into someone else's idea of what we'll be and do, we have the opportunity to make the life we want - a life that counts and satisfies.  

This book doesn't explain what decisions we should make, but rather the character qualities we need to make wise, fulfilling, and meaningful decisions about how to live a good life after mid-life. 

If your fifty years old or older - or if you hope to be someday - then this book is for you. 

Let me know what you think.

"Midway Upon the Journey of Our Life"

Dante began his The Divine Comedy with these words:

Midway upon the journey of our life

            I found myself in a dark wilderness,

            for I had wandered from the straight and true.

How hard a thing it is to tell about,

            that wilderness so savage, dense, and harsh,

            even to think of it renews my fear!

The wilderness into which Dante wandered, says translator Anthony Esolen, “represents the confusion of choices in a life not obedient to reason and thus not oriented toward man’s happiness.” That is, the wilderness is a life that has gotten out of control pushed about by whims, emotion, desires, and by the demands, expectations, and wishes of others. The wilderness is also the threshold to Hell, the subject of the first book of The Comedy, the Inferno.

Dante attempts to climb out of the dark wilderness to obtain the happiness he can see in the distance, but is driven back in despair by beasts representing his uncontrolled urges and cravings “to where the sun is silent evermore.”

There is only one way out of the wilderness and that is through self-discovery and a reordering of life his. For that, Dante must descend into the depths of the Inferno and climb the mountain of the Purgatory before he can enjoy the good, the true, and the beautiful in the Paradise.

The Comedy like other spiritual classics such as John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Hannah Hurnard’s Hinds Feet in High Places is at its core an allegory of the inner life. It’s a comedy not because it’s funny (it’s not), but in the classical sense that it’s a story that, despite all manner of suffering and sadness, has a happy ending. And even though thinking about the wilderness renews Dante’s fears, he goes on:

It is so bitter, death is hardly more—

            but to reveal the good that came to me,

            I shall relate the other things I saw.

In Pears, Grapes, and Dates: A Good Life After Mid-Life, I call the journey of self-discovery being a pear and the older of the two main characters is, like Dante, generous in sharing what he has learned in life.

My publisher has okayed the galley of the book and, with a bit more work on my part, it will be available next week.

In the meanwhile, I’ve reposted an article about Dante’s journey to Hell on my website and will follow up by posting about the Purgatory and the Paradise.

(The quotes are from Anthony Esolen’s translation of the Inferno, Canto I, Lines 1-9)

A Good Life After Mid-Life

Three lines from T. S. Eliot's poem "Chorus from 'The Rock'" sum up my fears about myself and my generation.

And the wind shall say: “Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls.” 

The first of seventy-seven million (that’s 77,000,000!) of us—the baby-boomers—have begun to retire. That’s about 10,000 every day and maybe more than that as the economic downturn turns long-term job searchers into reluctant retirees.

The wealth of experience, wisdom, and energy this represents is beyond calculating. And it would be a tragedy to squander it in a retirement orgy of decent and respectable godlessness, road trips, and lost golf balls.

Or at least I want more than that out of whatever years I have left and I don't think I'm alone. There are, I believe, ways to live a good life after mid-life marked by peace, contentment, fruitfulness, and joy. And exploring them is by itself half the adventure.

So beginning with some journal entries, Pears, Grapes, & Dates: A Good Life After Mid-Life began to take shape exploring the attitudes needed for that kind of life and how to set those attitudes.

Just think of the possibilities

Down in the Mines

This week, I've been at a conference sponsored by the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE).  Looking at "Boom and Bust in America," we visited Butte, Montana--"The Richest Hill on Earth." Butte is built over what may have been the world's biggest deposit of copper ore. Over the years 500 mines operated in Butte beginning in the late 19th century.

While mining in Butte peaked in 1917, in 1956, there were still miners putting on their headlamps and hardhats do travel up to 5,700 feet down into the mine shafts. That's when Ed Drabant began his career as a miner.

Ed was our guide at The World Museum of Mining on Montana Tech's campus in Butte. Born in Minnesota, Ed traveled west because the mining work was steady at the time and, due to it's inherent danger and the strength of the miner's unions, it paid very, very well.

Ed worked in six different Butte copper mines till the last one closed. Then he mined in Arizona until mining there closed down. Finally he mined till the bitter end in New Mexico after which he moved back to Butte to retire. He had "been underground" thirty-six years.

Now, in his eighties, he leads tours at the museum. When he guides groups around, yelling, "Fire in the hole!" just as he did in his youth. He waxed rhapsodic about seeing rock that was azure blue with copper ("It was so beautiful!") and told us about knocking down a wall of rock that revealed a stable for the mining mules thousands of feet below the surface.

"Do you miss mining?" I asked. No, he told me, but, he said, he got "all worked up" telling the old stories about drills and picks and dynamite and old friends.

Ed appears proud of what he did for a living, proud of his place in Butte history, enthusiastic about his job, and contented with his life. It was a privilege to meet him.

Backpackin' Baby

Living 1300 miles from the grandbaby, I don't get to see many firsts. Lucky for me that I'm here in Wyoming and got to participate in one. Matthias went on his first backpacking trip.

He rode the four miles to our camping site on his mom's back. That is, he was more of a backpack than a backpacker, but nonetheless he was a trooper. He seemed to adapt seemlessly to living outdoors and in a tent (though he's delighted to be back home and crawling among familiar objects). The campfire held a great fascination needless to say and he tried to climb every boulder in the rather boulder strewn area where we camped. Sleeping was no problem though he didn't stay in his "sleeping bag," a down vest with the neck and arm holes duct taped together.

My son and I left camp in the morning and went further up and further in, all the way to Thumb Lake at 11,000 feet. The sky was bright blue and the lake was crystal clear and surrounded by cliffs at the end of a cirque. Magnificant! Then we went down to Island Lake for a bit of fishing.

It won't be long before Matthias, now age 14 months, is boulder hopping up to Thumb Lake with us. Soon he'll outpace us and wonder why we're so slow. And I fully expect that he will catch the most and the biggest fish on any expedition we take together.

Someone said that grandchildren are the reward for old age, kind of a consolation prize. They're also one more reason to stay in shape, remain active, and look for ways to enjoy more firsts together.

Sit Back and Relax

When I sat down in my window seat on the Frontier flight from Washington to Denver I commented to the woman in the middle, "Every time I get on a flight, I think they've shrunk the seating room by another inch." She agreed. It was very tight.

The plane filled--and I mean it filled--and off we went.

As we took off the fellow in the aisle seat, a man of about 70, was reading the paper. Once in the air, the guy in front of him reclined his seat. And that's were the trouble started.

As I said, the seats were tight and reading was difficult. With the seat in front reclined, it was even worse. The paper reader in the aisle retaliated by repeatedly brushing his paper against the head of the  reclining passenger in front of him. He turned around asking that the paper reader cease and desist--assuming, I think, it was happening by accident.

"I'm reading my paper! If you don't like it, get your head out of my lap." Now reading the Washington Post can ruin anyone's day, and, as I said, it was tight, but the guy was over the top. He was caustic, nasty, self-rightous, and, in the final analysis, central casting's idea of a cranky old fart.

I had three responses. First, I was nervous that the altercation would escalate and we'd head back to DC. Second, I started laughing. The poor fellow became a caracature and it was a bit funny. No one would write such lame dialogue. Third, I prayed for him and for myself. I want to be that cheerful, gracious old person. Don't you?

Tech Overload

Yesterday I attended a conference called "Shaping the Industrial Internet." The "industrial internet"--aka: the internet of things, the cloud of things, the smart planet, and a few others--is the networking of everything. Sensors in the road, in your car, and in everyone else's car to ensure a safe trip. Refrigerators that know when the milk has expired and order a replacement bottle. Home thermostats controlled by your smart phone. WiFi cameras that post your snapshots to Facebook automatically. And tens of thousands of other industrial, business, and personal applications.

We talked a lot about privacy that in the European Union is considered a fundamental human right and in China is considered something of a problem. Technical, ethical, political, and policy problems abound, but don't expect any of that to stop it. Mountains of data already exist about you including that you're reading this blog and, if you're reading on a smart phone or tablet, where you're located while your reading. It's astounding.

More than once during the conference, I peeked at my email on the iPhone. Others did the same thing. In fact, the fellow sitting next to me, a journalist, had two phones going and a number of participants were blogging.

That's when the tech overload set in. I am deeply grateful for my devices. Facetime with distant grandchildren is the greatest invention ever. And yet, well, I'll just admit it: I miss card catalogues. I know that library collections on computer are faster and more efficient, but flipping through cards, I found out all sorts of things I never even heard of. And flipping cards was and is much more pleasant than typing. I still like books and if I wasn't frankly a bit lazy about it, I'd still write letters in script with a fountain pen.

I don't think I'm becoming an old fogie Luddite. It's just that there's something very human about books and pens and paper and card catalogues that digital media simply don't share. There's an acknowledgment of our embodiment. We can't be everywhere all at once even if that's the promise of the wired world. We can only be here, now, with our hands on one thing--even if that one thing pretends to be everything.

Calvin College Professor Quentin Schultz wrote in his book Habits of the High-Tech Heart:

We love to presume that our newest contraptions will equip us to engineer a better world. We thereby display an enormous capacity for collective self delusion, because the same machines that appear to give us a greater command of life are harder and harder for us to control. [Vaclav] Havel writes that "as soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it."

Quentin Schultz argues that in order to live, as he says, "virtuously in the Information Age," we need to carefully assess the technologies around us to use them wisely without losing our humanness in the process.

Gone Fishin'

I'm late with my blog today because I had a project to finish in the morning and then I went fishing. The tidal Potomac River as it runs through Washington, DC is an excellent fishery. Check out the video  by Urban Anglers.

The weather report in the morning said thunder showers and, like most sentient creatures, I'd rather not be in a thunderstorm while waving a 9' fly rod over my head. Then I checked the weather again at noon. They had changed their tune. No thundershowers until evening and so I rushed down.

A friend told me about Four Mile Run and I thought I understood where to park. The river was there emptying into the Potomac as he described, but I couldn't get down to it so I moved on to Gravelly Point, a spot I knew for sure.

While it's on the river, Gravelly Point is better known as the best place in the country to watch airplanes takeoff and land. It's border is about four hundred feet from one of Reagan National Airport's major runways. Whether taking off or landing, the planes come in very low. It's exciting and, needless to say, very noisy.

Yet once I began fishing, I didn't hear a single jet even though they were just a couple of hundred feet over my head coming in one after another. I was completely absorbed in watching, wading, casting, and water. I'd like to say that it was also absorbed in landing fish, but they, alas, didn't get the memo. And besides, once I arrived we were nearing slack tide, the great fishing slowdown.

That I've lived within ten minutes of the Potomac for fourteen years and have been fishing so rarely is embarrassing and just a little crazy. It's so relaxing whether I catch fish or not and it refreshes my whole outlook. Writing is easier now than it was this morning.

Next week I'll be in Wyoming fishing the high country streams and lakes with my son and then on my own in Yellowstone on my way to a conference in Montana. Yes, that's fishing heaven, but when I get home, I need to make more trips to my local river, enjoying the beauty, serenity, and thrills just down the street.

Is That Too Much To Ask?

According to "America's Finest News Source", Pew Research just released a study that found:

...Americans indicated that when it comes to what they expect from their country, all they really want is to be safe, happy, rich, comfortable, and entertained at absolutely all times.In addition, the U.S. populace reportedly wondered whether it was too much to ask that they always be healthy, fulfilled, successful, safe, loved, relaxed, inspired, motivated, worry-free, and content every second of their lives from birth until death “given that this is America, after all.”

Now, given that "America's Finest News Source" is the Onion, there is, of course, no such Pew study, however, I wonder how different the real results would be if Pew asked the questions invented by the Onion.

We saw it in the Occupy movement: I got my college degree, many of the protesters lamented, now where's my great, high paying job? We also see it in the after mid-life set: We worked hard all these years and thus deserve a good retirement with government benefits, great free medical care, luxury on the cheap, and our senior citizen discounts at Denny's.

As one respondent "told" the Onion:

Can’t the government just hurry up and solve the student debt crisis, make colleges lower their tuition, make them do a Friends reunion, ensure that everyone finds their soulmate, and then guarantees that the spark lasts? We’re talking about our inalienable rights as Americans here.

 And of course we want "our inalienable rights" with "low taxes or no taxes" and free wifi.

It's called a sense of entitlement, that feeling that we are owed all of the good things in this life and none of the bad things. Feeling entitled is part of our human nature. When bad things happen we immediately ask, "Why me?" When good things don't happen on schedule, we become cranky and look for someone to blame. When good things happen on schedule, well... that's the way it's supposed to be.

As a result thankfulness and joy go right out the window. And God help us if we're trying to live a good life after mid-life without thankfulness and joy.

Moonstruck

It's cherry season. Get 'em now or you won't get them at all.

I like that since it's not true of most produce. Asparagus, an early spring treat, has become a Thanksgiving staple (which is at least a venial sin). Blueberries are available fresh year round as are most other summer fruit. Add to that heat, air conditioning, underground walkways, and it's easy to lose touch with the fact that we're connected to the ebb and flow of seasons. But make no mistake about it, we are connected with the world as much as we erect barriers between the world and ourselves.

For example, a short article in the paper today begins "Sleepless night? Blame it on the full moon--even if you can't see it."

In the few days before and after a full moon... people took an average of five extra minutes to fall asleep, slept 20 minutes less per night and had 30 percent less deep sleep. 

Small wonder that on the nights around the full moon sleep volunteers reported that they didn't sleep as well as usual. And this was true even though they volunteers didn't know the moon was full and couldn't see the light of the moon through their windows.

While the scientists know there is a correlation, they admit that they don't know how it works. I suspect that, though it doesn't explain the mechanism behind the correlation, it's happens because we are connected to this world in fundamental ways that in our technologically advanced culture we ignore.

We can insulate ourselves from the seasons, pay no attention to the phases of the moon, and set bedtime and the alarm when it suits us rather than the light of the day, but we can't escape the rhythms inherent in creation because those rhythms are in us as part of the creation.

The next full moon isn't until August 21. If cherries are still in season, I'll plan to stay up late with a bowl full outside on the patio under the full moon. After all, we're not sleeping that night anyway.

Divorce After Mid-Life

In 2010, more than 600,000 people over the age of 50 got divorces.

A new study by the Center for Family and Demographic Research at Bowling Green State University found that the divorce rate for those over 50 doubled between 1990 and 2010. In fact, in 2010, one quarter of all divorces were to people over 50.

While it's not clear what specifically has caused the rise, researchers have some suggestions that are noted in the study.

First, because of earlier divorces, many over 50 are on second or even third marriages, that is, marriages that, according to the study, have a failure rate 2.5 times greater than first marriages.

Second, divorce is more accepted in society and, according to other studies, divorce tends to be contagious. If the people around you are divorcing, it becomes a more attractive option.

Third, more and more women work and women who work are financially able to go it alone.

Fourth, "lengthening life expectancies decrease the likelihood that marriages will end through death and increase the length of exposure to the risk of divorce."

Most important, the study points out that the meaning of marriage has changed from a life-long commitment to a commitment contingent on having my needs met. Or you could say we've gone from marriage "for as long as we both shall live" to "for as long as we both shall love" or at least (given no-fault divorce) until one of us is finished with the relationship. "Life-long marriages," they note, "are increasingly difficult to sustain in an era of individualism and lengthening life expectancies...."

So how do we keep our marriages from being among the casualties? By undoing the probable causes. Define your marriage as life-long. Remember it's "ours" not mine and even if you can go it alone, don't. Hang around with people who are happily married. I suspect marital satisfaction is contagious as well.

Old friends in their fifties recently got divorced. What a disaster for the two of them, their married and unmarried adult children, for sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, and for all those grandkids.

In contrast, a couple at church recently celebrated their 70th anniversary. I want Dottie and me to be like them.

Happy Hearts and Heart Health

The headline in the Washington Post Health and Science section reads: "A cheery attitude may be beneficial even for those with a family history of heart disease."

Negative emotions, including those associated with anxiety and depression, have been found to be hard on the heart. Might the opposite--feeling generally upbeat and happy about life--have the reverse effect and be beneficial to heart health?

It turns out that the answer is probably, yes. A study published in the American Journal of Cardiology looked at people with a family history of coronary artery disease and found that "People who were positive and felt good about their lives... were 33 percent less likely to have had heart problems than those who were not as upbeat."

Now, as with all studies, there are assorted caveats. But nonetheless, it seems reasonable that happy people are healthier than unhappy people.

It also occurs to me that even if it isn't true, happy people are... well, happy people are happier, that is, emotionally healthier even if they're not necessarily physically healthier. So all in all, I'll go with being happy, upbeat, cheerful, and positive.

But what about the problems in the world? How can we be happy in light of all that's going on in our families, communities, country, and world?

That is where faith comes in and there's no getting around it. You may or may not appreciate their politics, but three happy warriors come to mind, two of whom I had the privilege of knowing personally. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, William F. Buckley, and Chuck Colson were up to the minute on the sorry state of the world. They faced business, family, and personal issues. They were highly opinionated and argued rigorously for what they believed even when their counsel was rejected. Even now, after their deaths, things are still not going their way. Yet sustained by lively faith, they wrote, spoke, and debated with cheerfulness.

As someone who has a family history of heart problems, I take this study as both a warning and as encouragement. Given the alternatives, I'll be a happy warrior.

Slots

Whether it's in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Laughlin, Nevada, or Biloxi, Mississippi, casinos across the country have one thing in common: senior citizens. Thousands of them flock to the gambling halls in cars, RVs, and casino owned busses. And most, absurdity of absurdities, play the slots.

I remember driving through Nevada once when I say a sign for a casino boasting "the loosest slots in Nevada." Their machines had a 96% pay out. This means two things. First, for every dollar you throw into the machine, you can expect 96 cents in return. That is, the gamblers always lose even if occasionally someone hits a jackpot. In fact, someone hitting a jackpot means that the average gambler gets less than a 96% payout. Second, it means that other casinos around the state are not nearly so generous. Atlantic City slots average less than a 91% payout.

According to an item in First Things, "Americans lost $92 billion gambling in 2007, about nine times what they lost in 1982." With the growth in the number of casinos and increase in internet gambling, the number today is probably even bigger.

The article goes on to quote Jay Evensen, associate editor of the Deseret News:

Gambling produces no product that can be sold or exported. It does, however, remove billions of hard-earned dollars from people who otherwise might spend or invest in things of value. It also takes money from other forms of recreation.

I've walked into enough casinos to have seen the senior spending their savings and I know that the places fill up the week Social Security checks come in the mail. It's tragic and it's a grave evil to prey on the elderly--and, thus, on their children.

I admit to have fed a few slots in the past, but I always keep a story my parents told me in mind. Years ago, they found a dime--one thin dime--in the tray of a slot machine in Las Vegas. One of them picked it up, put it in the slot, and pulled the handle. They won! Then, needless to say, they invested their winnings back into the machine and won even more. And so it went until, at one point, they had a couple of large cups full of dimes. An hour or so later, they had half a cup of dimes, then a quarter cup, then one thin dime. Into the slot it went never to be seen again.

They had a lot of fun, but it seemed to me at the time and still today that gambling and a good life before or after midlife mix about as well as oil and water.

On Education

Doodling about the internet, I came across two quotes about education. The first is from Nelson Mandela: "Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world." And it seems to me that it's true--as far as it goes, which, it turns out, isn't very far.

Education will certainly "change the world," but not necessarily for the better. And changing the world for the better is the real challenge. North Korea has been carefully educating its people for generations, educating them to belief lies and in the process to be tyrant-worshipping automatons. Such education can be described in hip terms as an epic failure.

Closer to home, Michael Toscano and Peter Wood concluded in a recent National Association of Scholars report, that the things Bowdoin College, the elite Maine liberal arts school, does not teach includes:

Intellectual modesty. Self-restraint. Hard work. Virtue. Self-criticism. Moderation. A broad framework of intellectual history. Survey courses. English composition. A course on Edmund Spenser. A course primarily on the American Founders. A course on the American Revolution. The history of Western civilization from classical times to the present. A course on the Christian philosophical tradition. Public speaking. Tolerance toward dissenting views. The predicates of critical thinking. A coherent body of knowledge. How to distinguish importance from triviality. Wisdom. Culture. 

And, of course, Bowdoin isn't alone. An education that leaves such things to chance may change the world, but probably not for the better. This is particularly true if education is void of self-restraint, hard work, self-criticism, moderation, prudence, wisdom, and virtue.

The second quote is from the poet William Butler Yeats: "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." While our pails will be filled by education--you need information in order to think critically--real education uses the information as tinder and then strikes iron to flint so that sparks fly. Read a great book and things begin to happen internally and in our world.

They say, "It's never to late to have a happy childhood," but I'm not sure. Nonetheless of this I'm certain: It's never to late to get a well-rounded, well-grounded education. School, you may know is derived from the Latin word schola, meaning "leisure given to learning." and getting older in America typically means more leisure time. 

What better way to spend that time than striking sparks and lighting fires. We can overcome our own educational gaps and deficiencies, encourage young friends in their educations, and, if we choose wisely, change the world for the better.