Tag: Spinoza

“Let Them,” Self-Reliance, and Old Age

Sometimes, it seems that life just wants to teach you a lesson. You know this because synchronicities abound.   Driving around doing errands a few days ago, I happened to listen to an interview with the self-help guru Mel Robbins, who was expounding on her “Let Them” theory.  As I understood it, she was exhorting us to pay no attention to what other people do or say – and to just follow our wisdom.  There was a drop of stoicism in the message, and more than a little new-age me-ism.  Nevertheless, I got to thinking about how often what I think (or do) is related to how I perceive and anticipate the reactions of other people.  Once, a few years ago, I was explaining how I was doing something I didn’t want to do to satisfy a neighbor, when a wise friend of mine stopped the conversation to ask, “Don’t tell me at your age you’re still caring what other people think!”  Good question. Why do we still care?

 Later in the day, I was looking for a half-remembered passage in Spinoza and ran across Spinoza’s definition of ambition. Spinoza describes ambition as the “effort to do or omit something, solely in order that we may please men.”   Spinoza’s definition of being free – the highest good – is for something to exist “solely by the necessity of its own nature and determined to action by itself alone.”  In other words, the opposite of ambition. I thought I had turned in my ambition with my retirement papers, but maybe not.  

And that got me thinking about Robert Frost’s “Choose Something Like a Star:”

It [the star] asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

Of course, Frost’s poem includes a reference [“Keats’ eremite”] to Keats’ “Bright Star,” which begins: “Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—.”  Keats is talking about love, but he could also be exhorting us to be steadfast to our own mind and not pulled or pushed by the last book we read or our intimations of how others feel. 

Later, after meditating, I listened to a dharma talk by Gil Fronsdal, the theme of which was: “Don’t Make It Worse.”  Life is full of dukkha (suffering), but we do not need to shoot the second arrow (blame, regret, fear, etc.) and make it worse. And, of course, when things are bad, one of the ways we make it worse is by worrying about what people will think.  Buddhism talks about pairs of opposing winds that buffet our lives, one of which is praise and blame.  The goal is to steady ourselves in the storm.

My more rational mind (the mind that Spinoza exhorts me to consult more often) tells me that my friend was right.  Why should old people care what other people think?  And “other people” includes neighbors, books, internet gurus, friends, or that critical-looking woman in my yoga class. We’ve lived through enough bad decisions, taken enough bad advice, and mistakenly followed the crowd enough times that we should certainly have learned our lesson. This does not mean that we do not care about anything – it just means that we should know better than to give our equanimity away to the whims of others.  We should look inward for the answers. 

Which brought me to this from Emerson and his essay on self-reliance, which is really what we are talking about here:

He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles…

I think that one of the reasons so many older people are drawn to write memoirs of one kind or another is to explore what it is that we have learned, what we know.  And it is a worthwhile exercise if only for that purpose.  I have given myself the task of reviewing my old journals for the same reason.

Being old means often looking weak and vulnerable to the outside world, and we often reflect that view back on ourselves.  Lately, these is a ubiquitous meme on the net with post-menopausal women talking about how they “don’t care” about one thing or another.  There are a lot of things I do care about, but it seems that outside approval should not be one of them.  It is easier however to look for answers in a book or from someone else.  But, we can do it.  After all these years, we’re still here and we’ve got to trust that we have learned something.  And that our own opinion is infinitely superior (at least for ourselves) than the person’s next door or the latest new-age guru.

Often, old folks have to stand up to the consternation and advice of their younger relatives.  Holding our own is not easy, but it is often necessary.  You might try my story, “Again and Again and Again,” for an example of this.

A Great Old Age Simile from Bertrand Russell – and Some Advice

Bertrand Russell lived to be very old, and – in his rational and philosophical way – was much interested in the best way to grow old. (I could have told him it was slowly!)  Russell starts by admitting that the best advice is to “choose your ancestors carefully” – his own parents died young, but his grandparents led long and productive lives.  (His paternal grandfather was prime minister of England well into his 70s and an active opposition leader long after that.)  Russell cautions us against expecting too much from our children and gives the realistic advice that they won’t abide much from their elders in the way of advice or society – but they will welcome any funds that might be forthcoming.  All true enough.

In fact, in his essay, “How to Grow Old,” Russell says there are two major mistakes that oldsters make.  The first is to cling to the younger generation, or even worse, to try to imitate them.  The other error is to cling to the past:

It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead.  One’s thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done.  This is not always easy; one’s own past is a gradually increasing weight.

So, what does Mr. Russell suggest that we do? His great mind has pondered this, and his conclusion is much like that of his contemporary, Simone de Beauvoir (see here), both of whom think that we need “projects” in old age:

I think that a successful old age is easiest for those who have strong impersonal interests involving appropriate activities.  It is in this sphere that experience is really fruitful, and it is in this sphere that the wisdom born of experience can be exercised without being oppressive.

In his 80s and 90s, Russell took on things like nuclear disarmament, opposition to the Vietnam War, and overpopulation.  I hope he would have also approved of less noble pursuits and projects – like playing the piano or cultivating a garden.  Russell himself was purported to dabble in birdwatching.

Russell acknowledges that fear of death is often an issue with the old, but he finds this somewhat “ignoble.”  It is in talking about the best way to overcome our mortal fear that he waxes the most poetic, as we can see in this passage:

The best way to overcome it—so at least it seems to me—is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.

I love water metaphors for life.  Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity – all spiritual thought comes back to the symbol, the example, of water.  We are made of water, we need water, and – at our best – we are like water.  The Tao reminds us that, like the Tao, “water doesn’t strive or compete. It simply flows, finding its own path. [reaching its own level,] and adapting to the environment. This teaches the importance of letting go of ego and resistance, allowing things to unfold naturally.”

And, this brings me to Spinoza.  (I always come back to Spinoza.)  Many great geniuses – Russell and Einstein to name just two – were Spinozans.  Russell tells us that Spinoza was the “best example” of being able to view the world in this impersonal way as the end approached:

Spinoza, who was perhaps the best example of the way of feeling of which I am speaking remained completely calm at all times, and in the last days of his life preserved the same friendly interest in others as he had shown in his days of health.  To a man whose hopes and wishes extend widely beyond his personal life, there is not the same occasion for fear that there is for a man of more limited desires.

But, assuming we can transcend the personal, where does that leave us?  These are tough days. In my greener years, I protested the Vietnam War, signed petitions, marched for peace.  I was young, but things did not seem so overwhelming as they are today.  I was stronger and more resilient. I bellowed, but I did not despair.  Now I am tired, and I often despair.  I would urge the younger folks to get more involved, but we did not listen to our elders who told us to get less involved.  The tides rise and fall.  Tranquility in old age does not mean giving in; it means giving up neither our serenity nor our standards. And we must keep in mind that we are about to “merged in the sea.”  Russell is also famous for telling us, “The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible.”  These days the world is often horrible, and yet we must maintain our equanimity and “friendly interest.”  Not easy.

It is always interesting to look at how smart people have approached and lived their own old ages.  For more about the conjunction of old age and genius, you might look back on my blog, “Does Life Have Two Trajectories?”

Picardy Thirds and the Need for a Happy Ending

If you are not a musician, you may not know what a Picardy Third is.  Put simply, it means that when a piece is in a minor key (think somewhat melancholy), it is the major third chord that the composer uses at the end of the piece to give it a … happy ending.  Bach did this all the time.  It is also often done in hymns: things may be sad, they may be tough, but it is all going to be alright (assuming you behave yourself and go to the right place when you die).

Humans have always wanted happy endings, even when they weren’t there.  Samuel Johnson famously lamented about Shakespeare’s King Lear that

I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia’s death, that I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play till I undertook to revise them as an editor.   

Because many agreed with this sentiment, Nahum Tate’s revision, The History of King Lear (1681), with a “happy ending” was amazingly successful.  Lear gets to be king again and Cordelia lives happily ever after.  Tate’s redaction was of negligible literary value as compared to the original; however, it was almost the only version produced for about 150 years.  As Samuel Johnson said in reference to the revision, “the publick has decided” for the version where Cordelia “retired with victory and felicity.”  Well, there is a victory for sentiment over great literature.

We’ve been groomed to want and expect a happy ending.  If you are my age, you might remember watching Lassie on Sunday nights.  Lassie always had a scary problem to solve (child and/or dog in trouble) but it always ended happily (rescue, reunion, smiles all around).  Lassie was followed by Disney, where even Grimm’s Fairy Tales were cleaned up enough for our innocent minds.

But we all do it, don’t we?  We want to end on a major third, a happy ending, a victory lap.  But life isn’t like that.  Life ends in death; we might accept the end, but making a victory out of it is something else.  (I won’t talk about religion here, but you can see the connection.)

We have always known that there is something inherently tragic about life: It ends in death.   Jonathan Swift once wrote to a bereaved acquaintance, “Life is a tragedy, where we sit as spectators a while and then act our own part in it.”  Spinoza characterized most of life as “vain and futile,” but admitted that he was looking for a system that would allow him “unending happiness.”

If life has always been tragic, it somehow seems more so these days.  Many decades ago, Aldous Huxley predicted our current situation: “Armaments, universal debt, and planned obsolescence – those are the three pillars of Western prosperity.”  As I read this, I could not help but think that “planned obsolescence” applied not just to appliances, computers, and human bodies, but also to the planet that nurtures us.

We are looking for that Picardy Third to end on, but it seems more and more elusive.  As Kafka says, “There is infinite hope, only not for us.”

If you want to hear a short piece of music that ends on a Picardy Third, try listening here.  If you want a happy ending, you are going to miss a lot of great literature, great music, and the abundance of your life in its major and minor keys.  I would rather be living in one of Shakespeare’s tragedies than pretending in the worlds of Tate and Disney.

My short stories do not often end in a Picardy Third.  You might try “Closing Time” or “Every Winged Bird According to Its Kind.”

Anxiety in Old Age and the Eleventh and Twelfth Commandments of Second Mate Stubbs

I suffer from anxiety (ask anyone around me), but so do most old people.  And, of course, these are troubling times in every way.  I had always hoped that old age – assuming sufficient income and reasonable health – would be a time when I could finally relax; it is disappointing to find myself so anxious. I feel I should be old enough to know better, and surely old enough to realize that worry and anxiety (and one might throw in remorse) are useless states of mind.

There are things to worry about – I can give you lists of my concerns on the personal, national, and cosmic levels.  Of course we must try, as Niebuhr says, to “change the things that we can.” But worry and anxiety, in themselves, are ineffective against everything from tariff chaos to aging disorders. After we have done “what we can,” it is a matter of acceptance and control.  Some people find this through religion (Julian of Norwich assures us that “all things shall be well”), but that doesn’t work always or for everyone.  I tend to turn to Spinoza, who cautions us to rely on our rational capacities to keep ourselves on a calm and optimistic path (more on that here.)  Recently I found echoes of Spinoza in a self-help book by Judson Brewer: Unwinding Anxiety.  Brewer asserts that anxiety is a habit (I agree), and as old people we have had a long time to make sure that our habits are firmly entrenched.  How much of our day is unsettled by worry?  How much of our life?  My days are dwindling down to “those precious few.”  I don’t want “She Worried” sandblasted on my tombstone or on the memories of those I leave behind.

Brewer suggests breaking down anxiety into steps – Trigger, Behavior, Result.  In my case, the trigger is often a random thought, something that has just drifted through my poor brain to worry about.  My memory may be going, but my imagination has never been more ferocious.  So, one might say that most of my anxiety is self-inflicted.  No surprises there.  Of course, the trigger can be external: the stock market, an unexpected expense, or a change in health.  Whatever the trigger, the behavior is incessant worrying and generalized anxiety.  And the result is rumination, sleeplessness, inattentiveness, a mad search for distraction, and a generally bad day.  Brewer’s contention is that just by realizing what is going on, by stopping to identify each step in the process, we can be smart and inventive enough to change it.

It all sounds good, but it necessitates changing some pretty well-entrenched habits, habits written on our minds like wrinkles written on our faces.  Habits might have started in childhood as coping mechanisms and never got discarded.  But I am trying.  I have the time and the will, and I certainly have the triggers.

As you all know by now, I have been wallowing a bit in Moby-Dick lately.  I am reminded of the easy-going Stubbs, second mate of the Pequod, stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a dangerously fanatical captain (sound familiar?).  How does Stubbs keep smiling?  For one thing, he greatly enjoys the little pleasures of life, like eating the first steak cut from a killed whale:

Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat intemperately fond of the whale as a flavorish thing to his palate.

“A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, and cut me one from his small!”

But one might wonder how Stubbs keeps his appetite for such pleasures amid the challenges around him.  Melville knew we would wonder and, after an unfortunate encounter with Ahab, Stubbs gives us his rules of life:

“Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of ’em. But that’s against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth — ”

Of course, we should think.  I read Stubbs’ 11th commandment as “worry not.”  And I am firmly in favor of his twelfth; although, as I age, I find going to sleep much easier than staying asleep, for if worry and anxiety are not useful, are not good for you, they are even deadlier in the wee hours.

Brewer and Spinoza both exhort us to use our rational powers to counter anxiety.  Again, I try.  I guess the most effective rational argument for me is this reflection:  How many of the things that I worried about have come to pass?  Almost none.  The tree never fell on the house, the stock market rebounded, I was never fired.  Did worrying help prevent any of these things?  It did not.  Most of the calamities that have affected my life could not have been anticipated.  I am old and I know all this.  Now I just have to convince my habit-chained brain to recognize the truth and listen to Stubbs.

I recently saw an old video clip of Huston Smith interviewing Mark Van Doren (here).  I recommend it.  In the course of the interview, Van Doren asserts that we have a duty to be happy.  (Again, I am reminded of Spinoza and his exhortation to be cheerful.)  Van Doren insists that we realize and accept the nature of the world around us.  In fact, he says that this is the function of literature: simply to lay out the world as it is, so that we have no illusions.  Literature should not be didactic, he says; but it should be true.  I will never accept everything, but I also know that I am often tilting at windmills, at things that cannot be changed.  And I suffer for it.  Stubbs and Spinoza help.

Meanwhile, we all deal with anxiety in our own way.  You might try my story, “A Spoonful of Sugar,” to see one way that some of us cope (or distract ourselves).

The Good Life in Old Age

Unlike the obscure and nitpicking scholastics of our time, classical philosophers spent more of their efforts in trying to define what makes a good life. Eudaimonia is a Greek word, meaning well-being, or, perhaps, something akin to personal happiness.  These earlier philosophers were interested in discovering and sharing the best ways to live, and how to hold those standards up against the reality of our own existence.  What could be more important?  And they were not just talking to other academics; they knew everyone was facing this challenge.  I have been thinking about these guys (and unfortunately, they are all guys) lately in regard to old age.  What makes a good old age?

The modern answer would seem to be: enough money to live and travel, enough energy to party and play pickleball, and children who are self-sufficient but ready to take care of us when we need them.  Our independence is of the greatest importance – we don’t want to be alone but we don’t want anyone else telling us what to do. There is nothing wrong with any of these things, but having experienced the personal trauma of moving this year and the collective trauma of what is going on with the economy and the government, I am grasping for something a little less material, a little more stable than finances, climate or personal health.

And there is some agreement among the philosophers about the good life.  Aristotle says that the exercise of our rationality and virtue will lead us to a good life.  So does Spinoza.  What would this look like in old age?  What would it mean to live rationally and virtuously in old age?

The Stoics (and I am thinking mainly of Epictetus) say that in old age, or at any time, to be happy, to live a good life, is to free ourselves from expectations:

The only way to a happy life (keep this rule at hand morning, noon, and night) is to stand aloof from things that lie outside the sphere of choice, to regard nothing as your own, and to surrender everything to the deity and fortune… and to devote yourself to one thing only, that which is your own and free from all hindrances.  (from The Discourses of Epictetus)

This is akin to the Buddhist exhortation not to be attached to things: to be attentive but not reliant, to do the right thing without concern for the consequences.  This is advice that we could all use, but probably a lesson we all should have learned by now.  If you haven’t experienced the disappointments of the plans of mice and men by now, you are fortunate indeed.  Nevertheless, true detachment is hard to come by.  And in old age, things we are attached to fall away at an alarming rate, so we had better be good at renunciation.

Then there is the matter of remorse, regret and atonement in old age.  (I have written about this previously in “Old Karma, Instant Karma.”)  Cicero warns us that the mistakes of our youth will follow us into old age.  Yes, we all know that.  Spinoza gives the best advice in this regard (as in most regards): “Repentance is not a virtue, or does not arise from reason; instead, he who repents what he has done is twice wretched, or lacking in power.”  “Twice wretched” reminds me of Nietzsche’s caution that remorse was like “adding to the first act of stupidity a second.” The Buddha calls remorse “the second arrow.”  Something outside us wounds us the first time; our remorse keeps opening the wound.  Some religions have rites and rituals to help us to atone and erase. Again, if you have reached old age without remorse, you are blessed.

So, we should be rational, ethical, and at peace with our past.  What does this mean?  Cicero is very specific about a good old age: “the tranquil and serene evening of a life spent in peaceful, blameless, enlightened pursuits.”  I agree with the aim, but the methodology often eludes me.  Each of us can only define it for ourselves. We must try; we must work at it.  As Spinoza says at the end of the Ethics:

If the way I have shown to lead to these things [peace of mind] seems very hard, still, it can be found.  And of course, what is found so rarely must be hard.  For if salvation [the ethical and intellectual state of freedom] were at hand, and could be found without great effort, how could nearly everyone neglect it?  But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

 I recently read Florida Scott-Maxwell’s memoir of old age (recommended), written when she was in her 80s and in a nursing home:

I want to tell people approaching and perhaps fearing age that it is a time of discovery.  If they say, “Of what?” I can only answer “We must find out for ourselves, otherwise it won’t be discovery.”

In these times when the stock market is being undermined, when mores are changing, and the known is disappearing into the maw of the suspect, what better time for an internal “excellent adventure.”  Spinoza pursued this question while he was ostracized from his community and dying of spoiled lungs.  Florida Scott-Maxwell did it in a nursing home.  Epictetus did it as a slave.  We should be able to do this. I can give you no more than encouragement and reading lists (more on that in another blog).

You won’t hear the answers from Cicero or Epictetus or Spinoza or Aristotle.  Or me. That would be too easy.  But you might hear some of the right questions to ask yourself.

On a lighter note, I long ago drafted a story (“It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”) on the use of music to improve our mood – one way to a good life, at least in the moment. It’s something I pay attention to, and I know exactly what old songs will temporarily soothe my beast.  But, as the story points out, it is a band-aid and not a remedy.  The remedy would seem to be much harder.

Wisdom and the Rose-Apple Tree

I have spent a considerable amount of time speculating about whether we get wiser as we get older, and – if so – can that wisdom be communicated?  But what if the end of learning, of trying, of experience, is to simply realize what we knew in the beginning?  Stay with me.

After the future Buddha had pursued years of ascetic training and sacrifice, he was still not enlightened. He asked himself whether there might not be a better way.  Immediately he had the memory of sitting as a child under the shade of a rose-apple tree watching a ploughing ceremony his father was participating in.  He remembered the relaxed joy and communion his younger self felt with the world around him and immediately knew that this was the way to Enlightenment – back to that simple childhood awareness.

I recently came across this quote from a Japanese Zen master (thank you Tim Miller) who was writing just a few days before his death about how he had finally come to faith and resolution about life:

One might ask if it wasn’t just an accident that I came to faith after engagement in strenuous study, but I would say it was not an accident. It was essential that I should do it this way. My faith has within it a conviction that all my self-power efforts are futile. But in order to be convinced of this futility of self-power, it was necessary to exhaust all my intellectual resources and get to the point where they would not reassert themselves. This was a most strenuous business. Before I reached the end of it there were quite a few times when I thought I had acquired a religious faith. Yet, time and again my conclusions were shattered. As long as one tries to build up a religion on the basis of logic and intellectual study, one cannot escape this difficulty.

This idea that one only understands by “giving up” or looking back to what one knew before one started comes up again and again in wisdom literature.  We could recall the motto of Socrates:  “I know only one thing–that I know nothing.” One might think of Job, who tried to figure God out, only to be struck down in simple awe at the end.  Or Saint Teresa of Avila who entered joyful trances as a child by twirling around with her brother chanting “Forever, ever, ever” – a level of contemplative ecstasy she only came back to in later life. But it would seem that we must go through the process of trying to get there.  But (and this is one of those big buts), then, we must step back.  I have often talked about the value of quiet and reflection in old age, and maybe that is the purpose of such reflection.

Then there is my friend Spinoza.  Spinoza wrote an entire book (Ethics) trying to use the geometric/logical method to figure out the nature of man and the best way to live.  It is full of axioms, propositions, and postulates.  It is a great book.  But in the end, we get this: “The greatest striving of the mind, and its greatest virtue is understanding things by the third kind of knowledge.”  And what is the third kind of knowledge?   It is intuitive knowledge.    And yet, the last paragraph of the Ethics cautions us: “If the way I have shown to lead to these things now seems very hard, still, it can be found.  And of course, what is found so rarely must be hard.”  So it would seem that Spinoza agrees with my Japanese monk – study hard and then – step away?

One of my favorite pieces by Spinoza is the manifesto he wrote as he started out as a young man.  It delineates what he was looking for (“knowledge of the union existing between and mind and all of nature”) and how he is going to live and work as he gets there (great rules of life).  As far as I can tell (and I am no Spinoza scholar), he followed those rules and tried to find out how humankind fit into the scheme of things. He studied hard, thought much, and wrote it all down.  But he ends up by talking about intuition.

Here’s a story.  When I went back to piano lessons as an adult, I told my wonderful teacher that I loved to play but had no ear and was almost incapable of memorization.  After a few lessons, he told me I was mistaken – he had been watching me play and said I seldom looked at the music.  I did not believe him.  I believed – to some extent still believe – what I was told as a child.  You have no ear.  Maybe the trick is to clear away things we were told, not keep adding to the logjam of debris in our minds.  To let go.  Clear the decks.  Get back to the rose-apple tree.  It’s not easy though.

Fiction reading for this week is a new story, “Reflections,” which thinks about ways that our younger selves can (sometimes) pull us back to our centers.   It is about physical reflections and mental reflections. Enjoy.

The Truce of Saint Benedict and the Rules of the Road

You, who are on the road,
Must have a code
That you can live by. “Teach Your Children,” Graham Nash

Two recent conversations got me thinking about Saint Benedict. One had to do with whether older women (like me) should color their hair. I stopped the dye jobs a few years back, after months of dissuasion from my hairdresser (who had a financial interest) and my daughter (who presumably had my welfare at heart). They wondered: Why would I want to look old, to give up? In the recent conversation at my yoga group, I shared that going gray had been wonderful – no cost and no monitoring of the root line. The group was evenly divided on this topic. The other, much more serious discussion which brought to mind the good saint, was about a friend who had died despite fighting “the good fight” for a very long time. Death was the metaphorical enemy and our friend had “lost.” And why did this all remind me of Saint Benedict? For him, old age was not a battle, it was a truce.

St. Benedict lived a very long time ago, dying around 547. He founded small monasteries which eventually became a religious order and wrote the Rule of Saint Benedict, a set of guidelines noteworthy for its humanity. In the Prologue to this little volume, Benedict tells us that if we grow old it is by way of a truce with God, so that we may have time to “amend our misdeeds” and “to safeguard love.” A truce, not a war. Old age has a purpose for the good saint – one that should not be forgotten or (presumably) fought against.

When we fight old age and death against all odds, what are we fighting against? The universe? The inevitable? Is it heroic (and surely it seems so sometimes) or is it… a waste of the little time and energy that we have? Everyone must answer this question themselves within the context of their situation. But as we have learned the hard way in the United States, not all wars are worth fighting. But how to know what to do? Instructions might be nice.

If you look at St. Benedict’s slender Rule, you will pass a worthwhile hour. For his monastics, he set out the guidelines for life in a simple and humane way. He tells them how much they should work, read, rest, pray, drink. He counsels them on how to treat the young and the elderly (both with kindly consideration). I wish I had such a guidebook for my life. Many authors give us only questions (and this is a topic in itself which I will tackle next time, because it is my belief that the right questions might be even more important than the right answers). St. Benedict looked at his beliefs, and his experiences (not all of which were good), thought and prayed, and then wrote his Rule. It has lasted a very long time indeed. The rule is not primarily about faith – Benedict surely had faith, but his rule had more to do with the day-to-day experiences of eating and working and living with others and ourselves.

Others have written rules. The Old Testament tried to get the major rules down to ten; the New Testament further winnowed it down to one. Philosophers tried writing rules; here is Spinoza:

Yet, as it is necessary that while we are endeavoring to attain our purpose, and bring the understanding into the right path we should carry on our life, we are compelled first of all to lay down certain rules of life as provisionally good.

Note that even Spinoza’s rules were provisional. Parents have rules. As children, we used to joke about the “Rules of Dad,” which were not provisional and covered everything from politics to what time dinner should be served. Our society has rules of etiquette and political correctness. We have game rules and laws of the land. But as old age envelopes us and death approaches, I wish for a manual for this last period of life. And not the Art of War. I know that if I fight I cannot ultimately win, but I would like at least to be graceful in my capitulation.

Of course, to write rules, one must have an idea of what one believes, what one’s aims are. The definition of Credo is “statement of beliefs or aims which guides one’s actions.” Do you have a Credo? I am not talking about a religious creed, although for people of faith this might be the basis for a personal one. Writing a Credo would seem to be a worthwhile exercise and something perhaps we should all undertake just to see if we could put our operating principles into words. And then the rules would follow – “to attain our purpose,” as Spinoza asserts.

This week I have provided the first chapter of The Order of the Stock Farm Jesus, a novel I wrote a few years ago. It’s about an older women and a little girl who embark on the project of writing rules for life. Enjoy. And try writing your own rules.

Smile for Spinoza

When  thirty-two year old Jonathan Swift wrote the resolutions after which this blog is entitled (“When I Come to be Old”), he included the determination “not to be peevish or morose, or suspicious” on his list. At the end of his list he confessed he feared that, although he set up rules for his senescence, he “would observe none.” And so it was. Jonathan Swift was not a happy old man.

I got to thinking about positivity and cheerfulness as I read the cover article on this week’s NY Times Book Review, entitled “Put on a Happy Face,” which reviewed books that took an optimistic view of the world (a difficult task in present times, but apparently not impossible). In particular, it made me muse about the value of cheerfulness in old age, and it reminded me of something Spinoza said.

Spinoza led a hard life; he grew up Portuguese Jewish community in Holland, but was ex-communicated by his own people for his philosophical work. In his Ethics (1677), he strives to outline a rational basis for life, in the course of which he demonstrates the value of …cheerfulness. “Cheerfulness cannot be excessive, but is always good; melancholy, on the other hand, is always evil.” This makes sense to me. In the previous section, Spinoza had elaborated on how he came to his conclusion: “Joy is an affect [emotion] by which the body’s power of acting is increased or aided. Sadness, of the other hand, is an affect by which the body’s power of acting is diminished or restrained.” In other words, it makes sense to be happy, cheerful, positive. Cheerful people have more energy, more “power.” Sadness weighs us down, “restrains” us.

I remember an older man I worked with who was somewhat inept and clumsy, and not too awfully bright. But he was a ray of sunshine each and every day. Everything was going to be terrific, he thought you looked great today, and wasn’t it a beautiful day? Jim’s concrete contributions to the team were minimal, but no one ever suggested getting rid of him. His emotional support was priceless. The tag I use on my e-mail is from Thoreau and sometimes reminds me of Jim: “To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”

Old people do not have a reputation for being particularly cheerful. Old men are often characterized as grumpy and old women as crabby – not universally or accurately labeled, yet the stereotype is there. A question worth exploring might be: How does one maintain an attitude of optimism and cheerfulness as one ages, when (perhaps) the joints hurt, the teeth ache, the mirror mocks, and the pension is not keeping up with inflation?   I don’t think it can be done if we are fighting what is happening to us; warriors are not cheerful. But (perhaps) if we can accept the ride down, we might consider some words of Rilke:

And we, who always think
of happiness as rising feel the emotion
that almost overwhelms us
whenever a happy thing falls..

There can be, I think, happiness in the fall if one does not insist that one is not going to fall (while all the time headed down the rabbit hole).

Spinoza infers cheerfulness is its own reward. It increases “the power of acting.” And the people around us like it. But it is not always easy. “Smile though your heart is aching” advises the words of the song by that sad little tramp, Charlie Chaplin. Cheerfulness can’t just be a façade, nor can it be a blind optimism. You need to believe that there is some happiness in the fall, and you have to believe in the efficacy of a smile. And if your smile is not initially wholly sincere, an habitual cheerfulness might actually lead to a happier life. And that would certainly be something to smile about.

None of this is meant to minimize the effect of clinical depression or deep and justified sadness. But our attitude toward life is worth examining once in a while. This week’s story (“Snickerdoodles”) is about an older person who sees a vision of a more positive life (with Chaucer’s help) in the midst of change and loss. Her revelation comes while baking cookies; we will have to find our own catalyst.